My wife and I would like to upgrade from a travel trailer to a 5th wheel within the next year so we can travel more comfortably when we retire. That means giving up my beloved 2019 Tundra for a 3/4 or, preferably, a 1 ton truck. You haven't had much good to say about the big 3, and my research doesn't give me much hope, so I was wondering what the lesser of three evils might be between Ford, Chevy/GMC, or Dodge? They all seem to have various problems so I am wondering if it's even worth pursuing.
From what I'm hearing, even in the heavy duty trucks, GM quality has slipped pretty far. Not sure about the others.
Maybe the best option is just to lease and not keep them long.
That’s sad. So we can’t even recommend a heavy duty GM truck for purchase anymore.
I would go for a Ford F-250 or greater. Ford Ford light duty pickups anymore are made for pavement princesses with all of the electronics, not work. Dodge used to be good when they were Cummins turbodiesel-powered trucks. They were just notorious for rust. My father-in-law has a 1998 Dodge Ram 2500 with a turbodiesel made by Cummins, the frame is good, but cosmetically it's horrible. Now, they have Italian-made engines and aren't nearly as reliable over the long term.
Ram still uses Cummins diesel for some of their heavy duty trucks. Their heavy duty trucks don’t use Italian-made engine. You are thinking of the Ecodiesel engine but the heavy duties don’t use that.
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https://cdn.dealereprocess.org/cdn/brochures/ram/ca/2023-2500.pdf
I didn't know that, once Fiat took over, I figured they all went with the EcoDiesels, even more so when Fiat-Chrysler went under and they got bought out by Peugeot and became Stellantis. Those companies are so cheap, I figured they wouldn't use a Cummins, trying to cut corners with everything and make their stocks go up and their costs come down.
The engine (Cummins) and transmission (Aisin) are fine, but everything else around them I wouldn’t expect to last. If I got one of those trucks I would get the barebones version (a work truck basically) and skip all the other options.
If I ever get another car, it'll probably be a Toyota or Honda, I'll never get a Dodge. Ford's gone down the toilet, GM I derisively call "Government Motors". It seems only Honda and Toyota are built for the long run now. Everything else is expensive and not a long-term investment.
Although we don’t really know how long the new Toyotas and Hondas really last. They are as complex as ever now. They have cut some corners, too, and with more planned obsolescence.
It sounds like Ford is the winner of the losers. I think that we will keep the Tundra and get a nicer travel trailer. After all, it's still practically brand new at 38,000 miles and only four years old!