Just thought I'd update you guys on my quest so far. I've come full circle on the various options several times already
This past weekend, I went and drove the brand spanking new 2009 Ford F150 and the GMC Sierra 1500. Loved both of them. I took them both on the highway and they drove really really nicely.
Overall I thought that the Ford was the better truck although I prefer the looks of the GMC Sierra. The GMC is cheaper given bigger incentives from GM for good reason. The Ford was physically a larger truck and way quieter in the cab. The new six speed transmission seemed incredibly refined.
From a fuel economy perspective from talking to people at the dealership and drove on the same types of roads that I do, fuel would cost me about 20% more than my Honda van right now - which averages about 20 mpg on my drive to work.
My wife is NOT a fan of having a third vehicle. I'm still working on her but her opinion is that it is going to be one extra vehicle to maintain which will need tires and brakes and registration renewal and she partly does not want to look at a third vehicle sitting in the driveway (I don't have a garage). Her opinion is that either I should get something like a CRV or a RAV 4 with a trailer to haul this and that the 10 or 12 times a year that I need to, and dog trailer to take the dogs to training, OR, that I should just get a new truck and use it to commute and for the dogs and everything else. I would be putting a cap on it in this case.
If I only do get the one vehicle then I am biased to getting a three or four year old CRV or RAV4 - they are pretty darn reliable. However for a truck I *think* I ought to get a new one as the fuel efficience of the 2009 Ford F150 seems to be a lot better than the older model.
I am also going to go drive the Tundra this coming weekend.
One of the things that the F150 has going against it is that it is the first year of a major redesign which is often prone to teething issues, whereas this is the third year for the Tundra and Consumers Reports is finally recommending the truck after two years of not doing so for teething problems. CR believes that Ford's overall reliability is overall the best of the domestics so this biases me towards Ford and away from the GMC.
Ford incentives are quite good right now. There is $6000 from the manufacturer and I can get another $4000 as they have a special discount for suppliers - x plan or something like that. It works out so that I can get $10K off the MSRP. So ~$33 K CDN for a Supercab FX4 with the 6'6" bed and ~$35K CDN for a Supercrew with the 6'6" bed. I'm guessing that the SCREW with the larger bed will suffer a bit on fuel economy. Ford does not have any low rate financing at this time so it is a 5.5% variable rate through a local bank.
Don't know what cash incentives Toyota has at this point. The double cab seems to price out fairly close to the Ford supercab if I assume a discount from MSRP and it has 3.9% financing. This is with their 5.7L 6 speed transmission.
I really have no clue which will be more reliable.
Still very much open ended. Thanks for all the help so far.
