So I Bought a New Truck...

[Jeremy Billiel]

So I finally broke down and got sick of borrowing my fathers truck. With that said, I have been looking for 2 months and I finally settled on a 2006 F350 SuperCab Diesel 4x4. I have only put 100 miles on it and what a truck! It rides very nice and it is not stiff as heel like my dads GMC 3500.

So now I eliminated one excuse as to why I couldn't make many of the races, just to replace it with a new excuse: I am broke!

These trucks don't come cheap. Sticker 46K, I got it for 40K with 3.9% financing.

I will post some pics shortly! I am excited!!! My wife was not happy about buying this, but today she loved riding in it.

Oh and did I say TORQUE! It is nice to breathe on the gas and bam Torque!

[lateapex911]

Congratulations!

Regarding torque.....it's all relative..thats why us Mazda guys get in an average truck with a V8 and go, "Wow!!! Feel the pull!!!" LOL.

[zracre]

I bought a 99 F350 2wd turbodiesel crew cab...love it! It has 117k on it (106 when bought) and got it for around 22k...they are awesome trucks and you actually save on mileage compared to a gasser...

[eprodrx7]

JB,
I bought the same truck but mine is a 4x2 dually. Can't say enough about it. 8k miles, r :eclipsee_steering rides like a Caddy, 15mpg :eclipsee_steering:
JW

[Jeremy Billiel]

I have been driving it all weekend long and my first fill up I got 17.5 MPG! Not bad...

Hopefully I have years of good luck with the truck. I know the last Ford truck that was in the family went well over 300K.

[mlytle]

I have been driving it all weekedn long and my firts fill up I got 17.5 MPG! Not bad...

Hopefully I have years of good luck with the truck. I know the last Ford truck that was in the family went well over 300K.
[/b]
i just got a 2004 f250 long bed crew cab diesel with 27k miles. wow, it is SO much better than the big block suburban i had. should have made the switch a long time ago..

of course the trailer upgrade that went along with the truck is nice too. old - 20' wells cargo, new - 26' haulmark edge.

[x-ring]

I have a 1997 F350 CC 4wd psd. Torque is awesome, ride and amenities (SP?) are light years ahead of my old (1986 F250) ride, but don't kid yourself about saving money on fuel.

Better mileage? Yeah, but don't forget they need three gallons of oil at each change. Filters are pretty spendy too. Oh yeah, I had to replace the water pump on mine last year at 135K. Over $300 for the pump, and another $250 in labor. Admittedly, I had to get it from the dealer (it failed while I was at a race in rural Colorado, on Sunday), but the best price I could find later online was still over $200. The last time I put a new pump in my Datsun I think it was $17 from NAPA.

Still, would I go back? Hell, no.

[tom_sprecher]

I've got a 2004 6.0 F250 CrewCab SB 4X4 and get 15 city and 18 hwy. I bought it almost 2 years before I bought my car knowing I would be racing soon. I pull a 24' enclosed and most times you wouldn't know it was there.

Even with the additional oil you only change it every 7500 miles. Yeah the filters are high but the mileage is worth it. It doesn't take long at almost double the mpg over a gasser to pay for an oil change, like maybe 2 fill-ups.

Which at 30 gals+ sometimes I don't fill it up completely. Not because I can't afford it, just when the pump reads over $70 I say that's enough! :o

[x-ring]

Wow, I wish I'd doubled my mileage going to PSD from gas. My old F250 (460 cid, 4bbl) did about 8-9 mi/gal towing; the truck I have now is more like 12 mi/gal. 18 would be way cool. I'm not sure what it would do, mileage wise, on the highway without the trailer.

I guess they lengthend the service interval sometime between '97 and '04; my book calls for a 3000 mi change interval for 'severe duty', which includes towing (which is about all I use it for).

Most of the pumps around here stop at $75, so I almost always have to run the card twice :wacko: You would think that, at >$3/gal, they could bump the limit up some.

[tom_sprecher]

OK, OK, so it ain't as close to double as I thought, but most guys over at dieselstop.com in the gasser section are getting 8-9 city, 12-13 hwy. They also complain about no torque because standard gearing was 3.73 in gassers until recently. That helped keep the mileage up but sucked towing in the hills.

I drive mine 95% for business which is a lot of highway miles with hours between cool downs. I tow 3-4 times a year for a few hours at most. I don't think that constitutes severe duty or warrants 3000 between oil changes.

Highway miles don't wear on a vehicle like commuting does. For instance, I have almost 60k on my truck and still have at least half the tread left on the original tires.

Also the 99 and newer F250 and up is a whole lot more truck than the previous models. They don't share platforms with the F150 like before. The weight of a '97 with a suitably sized diesel would have probably resulted in great mileage compared to the 460.

Your mileage may vary.

[x-ring]

… at dieselstop.com in the gasser section are getting 8-9 city, 12-13 hwy. They also complain about no torque because standard gearing was 3.73 in gassers until recently. That helped keep the mileage up but sucked towing in the hills.
[/b]

What amazes me is that my old ’86 F250 camper special got 8-9 city and after 20 years and a switch to smaller motors and lighter chassis and they still get… 8-9 city.



I drive mine 95% for business which is a lot of highway miles with hours between cool downs. I tow 3-4 times a year for a few hours at most. I don't think that constitutes severe duty or warrants 3000 between oil changes. Highway miles don't wear on a vehicle like commuting does. For instance, I have almost 60k on my truck and still have at least half the tread left on the original tires.
[/b]

No argument there. I used to have a 55 mile one way commute to work, over mostly empty interstate, in a ’86 VW Golf diesel. The odometer broke some time after it rolled 300,000 miles and I changed oil and filter every 5000 – 6000 miles. It was still running fine when I changed jobs for a shorter commute and got rid of it (but it was getting a little hard to start on cold mornings). I think I only re-lined the rear brakes once, too.



Also the 99 and newer F250 and up is a whole lot more truck than the previous models. They don't share platforms with the F150 like before. The weight of a '97 with a suitably sized diesel would have probably resulted in great mileage compared to the 460.
[/b]

A ’97 F350 shares a chassis with an F150? I never knew that. No wonder it rides so much nicer than my ’86! I guess I better think about a newer truck before I get that gooseneck trailer I’ve been eyeing. I better go to the web site you mentioned and read up on it; I prefer my excitement on the track, not getting to the track.

[tom_sprecher]

I wasn't 100% sure so I had to do a search to back up what I hoped was not BS. I found the following which is an interesting read if your a Ford truck kinda guy.

F Series History (http://www.edmunds.com/insideline/do/Features/articleId=46026)

In a nut shell, when Ford revamped the F150 in '97, the F250 and up kept the same platform from '96 which was the last year the F150 and the F250 and up shared the same platform. In '99 the Super Duty series came out with the massive trucks we have today.

Also, gas mileage is dependant on so many factorys besides displacement and weight that it's hard to draw useful comparisons.

[mgyip]

i just got a 2004 f250 long bed crew cab diesel with 27k miles. wow, it is SO much better than the big block suburban i had. should have made the switch a long time ago..[/b]

You mean the F250 can actually pass a gas station?

I've had a '99 F350 PSD since June '98 - 150K miles later, I'm STILL pleased with my purchase. This is my first diesel vehicle but it certainly won't be my last. A buddy has the V10 version of the same truck and he is perpetually trying to get his hands on my PSD b/c it has seemingly endless TORQUE and decent fuel economy to boot. At last check, I'm averaging about 18 mpg empty and around 10 mpg towing a 27' enclosed brick.