truck advice please

[jeffsw6]

The big issue on these trucks is reliability. If you are making a living with them I would not trust a 20 year old anything.

With a two-truck solution I feel pretty comfortable with one being older. I also have several friends who all trade extra work with me, we help each-other whenever needed, etc. so if I had a breakdown on the way to a job it would be a bad day but it would not be a huge problem.

As to turning radius / parking trailers in the city, you are right this is a concern for me. I decided to make smarter use of my small trailer, I guess it won't be on 100% mower duty after all. I am going to re-do the inside of it and add some e-track.

The Tundras, they hold their value so well I would sooner buy a mid-00s duramax. I am convinced I would still have to be really cautions with tongue weight / proper loading with a Tundra. I do not think anything smaller than a F350 SRW will give me the margin of error I would like to have.

I went back and read your other posts. If it was me and I was just towing that trailer occasionaly, I would probably pay to have 4.10's or even 4.56's put into your suburban with a weight distributing hitch. With your OD those gears are not that much of a penalty in fuel consumption.

A two-truck solution is really smarter for me for many reasons.

You cant go wrong with the mid to late ninties chevy with the 454. Not gas friendly but very reliable, cheap to maintain, easy to work on and run well to 300k miles with few problems.

This was my thinking as well. The one I am waiting for a call about is a 96 with 165k and the guy's ad says the only problem with it is "could use valve cover gaskets," which I think is every Chevy of that era. I have a friend who can maintain gassers like nobody's business for a fair rate too. Don't have any diesel tech friends though!

 

[alaskakubota]

I would get a 94-98 dodge with 12v cummins and a 5 speed. Bulletproof. That motor tranny combo is hard to beat.

 

[Soundguy]

if you like the f350 7.3psd, but not the 10-15K tag price.. look older than 03 and in the 96-99 range. in 97 the new look came out.. but a clean 96 should be fine if you don't mind the boxier look and different door handles. And should last WAY longer than 2-3 ys..

i just got a 99 350 7.3 drw 4x4 in the 10k range. I seriously looked at a couple 96-97setup in the 3.5-5k$ range.. almost pulled the trigger onthe 96 due to how clean it looked...

some don't like the drw. if you don't need the slight extra capacity.. that should make it a lil easier..e tc..

soundguy