Personally, I Like a Cummin more than a Hemi, no doubt about it. Just telling you when your mechanic hit you with a bigger repair bill compare to your 4.7l 1500, you should expect it coming.

The injectors really dont have much problem unless you use bad fuel most of the time. I am just giving you an example if something do break, like your mechanic is telling u.
And generally, for the same purchasing price, the Diesel usually have more miles and wear and tear on its body than a Gasoline truck.

The repair is not ungodly expensive, just trying to tell you it will cost u more. If you think you can handle it, perhaps you should just get something you like.

If you just want a Diesel in general, have u look at the Chevy Duramax and Ford Power Stroke? sometimes those comes at a better deal than a Cummin.

 

The reason you might find Duramax and Powerstrokes cheaper is because they've got more problems, especially the 6.0 Ford. You gotta wonder how a company can afford to redesign an engine every couple of years.

Anyway, the 2500 and 3500 cummins are going to be pretty darned comparable parts-wise for maintenance. Yes, tires are going to cost more, but brakes, steering components, axles, and pretty much everything else are going to be identical.

It is my understanding that the front hub adapters unbolt and you can get wheels with a little less offset (or more?) and the rears will bolt up with only about a 2" difference in width. The dually beds, from what I was told, will have a larger cut-out for the wheel arch.


I bought my 98 a few weeks before hooking up a 24' cargo trailer and moving 10k+ pounds of household goods in it across the country. Yes, I did yank the transmission out and do a pre-emptive rebuild with upgraded clutches an aluminum accumulator piston, twin-disc billet torque converter, and shift kit. I also replaced the main core plugs on the engine as two were about to rust through, and I flushed the brakes, PS fluid, differentials, replaced all belts and hoses, and swapped out the governor, valve, and afc springs as well as put a #100 fuel plate in, and I put my Airdog and FS2500 on it.

13000 miles later, since March, and I haven't had a single mechanical issue with it aside from the ball sockets wearing out on the throttle linkage.

I have been doing my oil changes at 5000 mile intervals to flush out whatever was in there, and at this next LOF I'm going to send out a sample for analysis and see if I can start spreading my intervals.

If looking at a truck older than 2003, it'll have Dana axles and there will be a difference in the rear end. The auto 2500s have a dana 70 whereas the manuals and the dually trucks will have a dana 80.


Right now I'm commuting a whopping mile to and from work, and I hate doing it in my diesel. The truck doesn't even warm up, and I know that's not good for it.

 

why not ride a bike if its only a mile lol.. get a moped haha. 49cc scooter...dont even gotta register it or have a license for it!

 

Thanks for all your replies! I've decided against the said dually for now after seriously considering where I'd be driving it most, and it would really be a PITA..I love em, but I would constantly live in fear of someone clipping the dually fenders while parked, plus most driveways and parking spaces around where I work cater more to Prius's

Horatio, for a while I was considering both, but for one, I spent a while in a part of Colorado that was 90% Cummins Country, and it's hard to shake that bias. I like the 7.3's, but finding one around here that isn't trashed or under 200k miles is few and far between. My father owns a '06 Duramax, which I like the looks of but I can't afford it, and I don't want to deal with the "Injector years" either. Cummins is just a natural choice, even if I have to deal with the body coming apart at some point...the sound, the look, it's just awesome.

When I do get one, I don't plan on 4 wheeling or hot rodding (famous last words)...at least not in the near future. The stock acceleration and power was enough for me after multiple drives, and I don't have any instances where I'd need to offroad or use 4x4 excessively at this point in time.

I do appreciate all the great info I've gotten on here. I've asked many questions on DieselBombers and getting any advice or..anything..is like pulling teeth for some reason, so I think I'll be sticking around here instead

 

jigapop - I was riding my bike for a while, but it's just a PITA right now because I don't have a garage, so it's in the shed in my backyard and I have to get the key, go back there, get my bike, lock up the shed, put the key away, ride to work, and then ride home for lunch and repeat. If I had a garage that I could just leave the bike in, ready to go, I'd do it.


The 7.3 is a good motor, it's just expensive to make any real power out of. We had one in the shop for almost 4 months - a 97 that looked like a real nice truck, until we started working on it. The owner is a salesman at a local car lot, he bought it from one of the mechanics there. We ended up replacing the glow plug relay, the ECM, the rotors, pads, shoes, axle seals, front wheel bearings, calipers, right side knuckle, tie rod end, u-joints, and I'm sure there was more than that I'm just forgetting right now.

After all that, it still has a salvage title and a badly thrashed impeller. Looks like it probably took a hit to the LF corner and shattered the airbox, causing plastic shards to mangle the turbo.

 

7.3 is a good motor. the 6.0 is a good motor too *IF* you put head studs on it. I'm not a ford fan though, and the v8 diesels are expensive to get power out of compared to the inline 6 cummins

 

6.0 is a good motor if you do a bit more than just head studs, but they're more complex and they're not as stout.






Then there are the main bearings, guess which has more, the v8 or the inline 6...

 

Yeah that is true, although I do really respect and like the 7.3 for it's reliability. Sounds like all those fixes were due to the age, or are earlier 7.3's more prone to body breakdown?