LMFAO! The Duramaxipad never outlives a Cummins or older Powerstroke 7.3.
If one wants the ultimate pickup, buy a F350 and replace the engine with a Cummins from the Dodge and the Allison tranny from a GMC.
I have a 1ton ready to roll
Discussion in 'Expediter and Hot Shot Trucking Forum' started by DieselPower, Oct 19, 2011.
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The problem with GM trucks, there front end wont hold up. I've often wondered why GM insists on "A" arm front end. All your ford and Dodge HD trucks have pretty strong stuff under them, especially if you get 4X4. The Duramax is a good engine. The Allison is a great transmission. Dodge trucks with DPF's on them suck. 6.4 Power stroke are a big improvement over 6.0's.
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I know several hotshotters that have a lot of miles on Chevy trucks with no complaints of front end problems . Most Dodge owners I know had front wheel bearing problems . That means replacing the whole hub assembly and I never heard of anyone finding a dealer that had the part in stock
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As far as finding them, well I was never into buying parts at a dealer unless it was a dealer item only and wheel bearings/hubs are not a dealer only item. I can walk into a parts store and pick up a hub assembly for pretty much anything.
I know that we tired other pickups such as Ford and Chev for hot earlier hot shot work but we always went back to Dodge as we had less issues with the mopars and the cummins motors.
But we had an independent shop and used car lot. I was the head mechanic for many years in the shop and I have grown to hate anything from the Ford motor company. Lets just say that Fords kept the shop very busy which means I would never put one in my personal driveway. -
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The main reason for the trade-ins was for the great rebates that Chrysler has on commercial trucks. I'm glad to see Dodge's have good track records for Hot Shot work, the bang for the buck is also quite a bit better with the Dodge's.
The GMCs we had ran around $50K/ea. and were very basic (crank windows etc...) where as the Rams are just about fully loaded with GPS, Satellite etc.. -
We looked at big Fords, but you couldn't touch one with the same options the Dodge came with standard for under about $55-60K, and that was over a year ago, so I can imagine what they are now. I drove one of the Fords and it was so rough it darned near bucked me out. The ride in the Dodge is fairly rough but still a whole lot better than the Ford. -
The local Dodge dealership's owner's daughter shows horses . Every year she has a new loaded dually that runs on dealer tags . A few years ago I got a good buy on her "old" truck complete with gooseneck hitch .
By the time I had 70,000 miles on it though the repairs and downtime waiting for parts made me wish I had paid more for a Chevy Duramax . -
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Most of the trucks I seen at my shop were dodge. The chassis and auto trans was junk and if you had a gas burner it was junk too.
The older cummins was a good motor, but adapting it to a GOOD superduty chassis seems to iffy to me. I done a few coversions on other trucks before
nothing never fit as stated by manufacturers and there was always problems.
The 7.3 has served me well so far I have 468,000 on one and 299,000 on other. Only real problem has been the clutch pilot bearing and the idiot in saxonburg pa I let rebuild mt zf6 trans. I got 368,000 out of trans with only one minor inframe repair. now with less than 100,000 since this fool built me two zf6's I have had my trans out 4 times since july. I don't like the 4500-5500 series of any of them. I had a 98 chevy HD series and it rode like a wagon. The slight increase in gvw isn't worth the money in my opinion.
I wouldn't spend 45-55,000 on a truck either if I was going to spend that much I'd go class8. You can look around and find a low milage 350 at a steal sometimes, people buy them thinking they want one it sits most of the time and then they sell it. Older fords with 7.3's seem to have the best resell value. Dodge has always been the worst on resell value, I just about gave my extended cab away to get rid of it.Personally I don't see the use in buying a new truck for hotshotting makes your cost of operating more and if you decide you don't like it you can't hardly give the truck away. If you doubt what I say and check some of the other forums most of the guys don't last eighteen months and then you have a payment to follow you for years.
Just my .02's worth.
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