Gas vs Diesel

I need to pull a mini excavator. It and the trailer will weigh almost

10,000 lbs. My '91 F250 diesel that I bought about a year ago, has a cracked head - $3,000+ to fix. I may trade it in and get another, perhaps a Chevy.

I'm wondering if a larger gas engine might be a better route to go? Any opinions?

Thanks, RO

Reply to
RO
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If you regularly tow 10K then the diesel is the way to go. It is my opinion that Ford must make a pretty good diesel or there wouldn't be so many of them on the road. I would be partial to the duramax myself.

Bob

Reply to
Cad Man

make that Ford buys a pretty good diesel... same with dodge... gm is the only one that actually produces their diesel engine (through a subsidiary). the excavating contractor my former employer used to use had a finish grading crew that towed a 8,000+lbs tracked takeuchi skid steer every day behind a '98 C3500 with a Vortec 350 in it... the guy that drove the truck said it had enough pwer, but he wasn't racing it either. this was in Maine.. fairly hilly counrty too.

-Bret

Reply to
Bret Chase

I pull a Bobcat skidsteer pretty regularly with a '99 C2500 350 auto. No more than enough power and the auto wants to shift a lot on hills. If it were mine, I'd go for a C3500 and standard trans. 350cid would probably be ok with this setup. Diesel would be better, just depends how much money you have to spend. I've also used a Dodge 1 ton with V10, 5 speed which pulls it nicely. Both trucks get real thirsty when pulling the Bobcat. H

Reply to
Hairy

Get the Duramax with the Allison tranny, you'll be glad you did. Ford makes a really tuff truck, but their diesel engine that they use (Navistar, read International Harvester) is quite over rated. A diesel should get half again, maybe close to twice the fuel mileage over a gasser when towing 10k, if that's a factor. Diesel fuel simply has more energy per gallon than gasoline. Been there, done all that. Paul

Reply to
Paul in Redland

My opinion:

The ford motor is fairly crappy, and the Duramax and allison transmission aren't the greatest either.

I own a repair shop, Powerstrokes blow lifters and have bad intake valves, to soft. The tranny's are weak.

The duramax blows injectors out of the heads and I have seen a couple allison tranny's pile up.

I have never had a dodge in my shop yet. ;-)

I own a 94 chev 3500 4x4 6.5 standard transmission with a service body on it, weight is 10.000 lbs. I had to rebuild everything other then the tranny and front end.

Just so you know, take your pick.

But each it own

just my 2 cents

Mathijs

Reply to
mathijs

I'll take an inline-6 diesel over a V-configuration diesel engine every single day of the week. The Cummins lasts, there is no way around it. As long as you don't hop it up like a retard with chips and garbage.

Reply to
Demon

Reply to
Robert Ball

the cummins is a great motor... now if they could just do something about the truck they wrapped around it.

-Bret

Reply to
Bret Chase

I think a lot depends on how far you're moving the equipment and how often... the more often and longer distance I used it for, the more I'd lean toward the diesel..

I've been researching the big 3, looking for a diesel pickup next year, and they all have their strengths and weaknesses... What I really want to tow our rv with is a ford f-250 super crew cab with a cummins td and an allison tranny.. lol

I think that the bottom line is that if you're "trucking", a diesel has more torque at lower rpm... made to tow..

Mac

Reply to
mac davis

My feelings exactly, Demon... I have 2 Dodge trucks now, but the thing that's keeping me leaning more towards for their diesel is the many problems dodge has with transmissions, especially with diesels..

Mac

Reply to
mac davis

If you are talking strickly cost numbers, and not the truck's pulling ability, driving range on a tank of gas/fuel without having to stop and refill, the reliability of the compaired engines given the load it will be pulling. Sure, a 350ci can pull that load, but how well? will it be able to keep up in traffic? will it overheat at the first sign of an incline? what trand do they have behind the 350? how much compression braking does the 350 have compaired to the Diesel? Per tank, How big is the tank on those trucks? If its a 30 gallon tank and you are getting 10mpg with the gas, thats 300 miles a tank, then lets say you get 15 out of the Diesel. thats 450 miles a tank. when it comes to lost time sitting at a filling station, that extra 150 miles can add up. ok, lets get that Diesel to pay for itself now. assuming 10,000 miles a year, 10mpg for gas, and 15 mpg for Diesel. thats

666 gallons of Diesel, OR, 1000 gallons of gas. Current Ave price for gas around here, $2.20/gallon, Diesel, $2.10. $1398.60 for the diesel, $2200 for the gas. a savings of $801.4 per year. IF you are doing 10,000 miles per year. More miles, more of a savings. so in ten years, you saved $8,014, minus $7,000 for the upgraded option of the Diesel, and leaves you with an extra $1,014 over ten years for maintinance. Take that up to 12,000 miles a year (very common anual mileage in SoCal) and that number climbs to $2600 left over for maintinance. Diesel, 12,000/15mpg= 800 gallons, 800 gallons*$2.10 = $1680 per year Gas, 12,000/10=1200 gallons, 1200 gallons* $2.20= $2640 per year $960per year* 10 years, - $7000 for the Diesel = $2600 This is also asuming 10 mpg for the gas and 15 for the diesel. the WORST Diesel MPG I have heard of in a pickup is 12, and the WORST gas MPG was 4. I have also seen six year old Diesels with over 400,000 miles on them.

Can a Diesel owner give some figures for how much more it costs to maintain a diesel over a Gas with the same workload? and maybe explain why you went with the Diesel over the gas, since many dont care about the improved fuel economy over added upfront cost argument. Also, what kind of miles do you guys put on your trucks in a year?

There is also the resale/trade-in value the Diesel brings when the time comes for a new one.

may the flames begin!

Robert Ball wrote:

Reply to
Trey

A couple of minor points, anyone pulling that kind of load will probably not be using a 350, especially since they stopped selling the 350 in new trucks several years ago. The bigger engine usually gets a bigger transmission, or at least a trans cooler is standard. Compression braking, the big gas engine has it all over the diesel unless a Jacobs (Jac) brake is added to the diesel. Another $1500 or so. The original question appeared to relate to pulling a tractor to job sites, presumably not a lot of miles in a year. No question that the diesel is the right choice for many people, they just need to understand what the issues are, you did a good job of identifying those. I occasionally pull a small front loader with my 97 2500 HD with 454, we estimated the weight at

8,200#. I personally prefer the gas engine for the other 95% of my driving.

BTW: st> If you are talking strickly cost numbers, and not the truck's pulling

Reply to
Robert Ball

Absolutely

Reply to
Stephen Young

...

Hmmmm, you might just have something there.

Paul

Reply to
Paul in Redland

Good figure dude, right on! I'm a firm believer in Diesel, the prices here in Indiana are 2.00/gas 1.69 diesel, so if I were in his shoes I would buy a diesel any time, ta hell with chevy and their wanna be good 454 gas guzzler

Reply to
abomb6900

Reply to
mathijs

Very interested to hear about that. Updates would be appreciated. Thanks. We've got a handful of 5.9's at our shop, never thought about swapping one into a Chev.

Reply to
Demon

On Fri, 23 Jul 2004 19:38:52 GMT, "Trey" wrote: (sorry for the top post) In our case, I think your numbers work out even better, Trey... We haven't priced anything but dodge yet, but the cummins option has a MSRP of $5,500... Our 360 gasser gets 8 mpg towing our little 5,000 pound trailer, 15 mpg empty on a freeway trip.. it has a 26 gallon tank..

The folks that I talked to (and believe, some like to puff the numbers) get a ball park of 11 towing and 20 on freeway trips..

My friend with the 01 f-250 gets 12 mpg towing a 12,000 5th wheel and

23 empty/freeway, but he'd probably get 9 or 10 mpg towing in our gasser, due to driving styles..

He also runs away from us on grades, away from stop signs and in those many cases each day on a trip that you're slowed by traffic and have to pick up speed again..

Mac

Reply to
mac davis

wow.. please do keep the info flowing, and good luck! What transmission are you planning to use?

If you need any tech info, there are a few guys in alt.autos.dodge.trucks that are very knowledgeable..

Mac

Reply to
mac davis

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