Bird and Cowboydoc,
I'm staying away from almost all GM products. The competition is going to have to be pretty aweful for me to go back to a GM product. The Dakota I had from 90 to 95 was pretty good except for a bad altenator. I needed a fullsize truck and a 4x4 so I got the Chevy.
One of the ideas that is driving me away from my Chevy 2500 and towards a F450/550 or Isuzu is the work I have to do on the property. I need a trailer or a truck with a dump bed. Here is my what I need to do and a dump bed would help greatly....
- Move hundreds of stumps in piles from place A to B.
- Build at least two driveways averaging 400 feet long.
- Bring in lots of mulch for one to two miles worth of trails.
- Bring in manure for making pasture(I think this is what I should do but thats another thread/class.)
- Bring in special fill dirt for at least one septic system.
- Pick up and move road building debris, i.e., rocks, stumps, and some dirt from 20 years ago.
Those are the major todos I have for the next five years. As I started looking at this list a few months ago it reminded me of the tractor purchase decisions. If you look at any one or two items it pays to have someone else to the work but if you add it all up....
I got the tractor, call it 11/1/2000. I'm at about 210 hours since then and thats missing two months of farm work due to weather, sickness, work, family todos, other todos, and work. /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif With the work I have done I figure the tractor has saved me between 10,000 to 15,000 dollars. Thats a pretty good return. By the end of the year, and certainly in 12 months, I figure the tractor will have paid for itself. While I still have the monthly payment it will have been paid for so to speak.
Alot of the truck work is moving in ABC, riprap, and fill dirt that I could certainly get a dump truck to do. From what I can tell so far the the F450 and the Isuzu can haul about 7,000 pounds, which is roughly four cubic yards of material leaving a little extra capacty stay within the trucks load limits. Talking to dump truck drivers/owners and watching them it looks like they are bring it roughly twice the material at say $60 per hour. SOOO, if a F450 can bring in a third to half of the load of a dump truck, I could "earn" 20-30 dollars per hour.
Given the amount of hauling I need to do this starts to get into some money.
Now, it certainly does not pay to just go buy a truck to do this work. It does not make money sense. BUT, if the prices I'm seeing on pickups vs F450s is the same and I need a new vehicle, buying the 450 makes money sense because I'm getting more function for the same dollar. The pickup just can do what I'm thinking about doing. So if I have to spend X dollars and I get the 450 type of truck it can actually save me some dollars down the road whereas the pickup forthe same dollar does not.
I have been seeing what Cowboydoc has been seeing, a drop in the prices of pickup trucks. I have seen 4,500 to 6,000 dollars of the asking price. ON TV no less. I even saw an add for diesel trucks! One local dealer, he has something like 250 some odd Excursion/Expeditions, is advertising 0 percent loans for 5-6 years.
But given the two grand I just put into the truck in a new clutch and new tires, I'll have to keep driving the Chevy for another year to get the money out of it. I guess I'll decide then on what to do...
But it looks like any new truck will be a Ford or Isuzu. Which ever deal works out.... /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif
Thanks Guys,
Dan
