I believe the sticker on this truck was about $52,500 or somewhere thereabouts. It is priced and equipped very similarly to the 2010 Dodge Ram that I test drove and 2010 Ford F350 that I test drove. They were all crew cab, 4x4's with whatever off road package that manufacturer offers equipped with a diesel and automatic. All the trucks had cloth interior, power windows, door locks, seat adjusters and mirrors. They all had CD players. They were what I would consider mid line to upper mid line trucks. I hate leather seats because I don't like having to condition them so I will NOT buy a truck equipped with leather if there is any chance that I can avoid it. This particular truck was a SLE trim level. I honestly don't know how the Dodge was so much less than the other trucks in that heavy duty pickup truck shootout because the one that I test drove didn't have leather seats or navigation or a lot of the other goodies that the test truck had and it was also priced right around $50,000 to $52,000.
As for the whole not wanting to buy GM vehicles argument I am very ambivalent about it. Ford was in just as bad of shape as GM and Chrysler were in 2008 and 2009, but they were in bad shape a few years earlier. I remember there was talk about Ford not surviving back when Lehman Brothers was still on top of the world. The only reason why Ford didn't take bailout money was because their worst times were just a little sooner than GM and Chrysler. Ford would have taken money the same as GM and Chrysler if their timing was the same. Ford will also be in just as bad of shape as GM and Chrysler have the potential of still being in a few years too unless they break apart the UAW or move the vast majority of their manufacturing overseas or to non union states. There was bad management at the top of every American car company and they certainly played a role in the problems but the UAW and their absurd contracts and unwillingness to give up many of their lavish benefits or do more work for the same money was even more to blame. I'm very unhappy that GM stock and bond holders took it in the shorts, as I believe that it should have been the UAW that took the hit instead or at least shared more of the pain. However, the pragmatist in me realizes that in this day and age with the government wanting more and more influence over our lives and at the same time more susceptible to outright bribery on the part of lobbyists than ever before that any of the American car companies could very well have ended up in the same shoes as GM. If the financial meltdown happened two years sooner Ford would have been the one largely owned by the government and GM would have been in a better position to weather the storm. The fact is that there was no way that the government was not going to do something to prop up the UAW when there were thousands of votes to buy regardless of what company happened to be in the worst shape at the time.
