Diesel for overlanding- are you happy with the choice?

[Todd n Natalie]

Sounds like you're sold on a diesel.

 

[GreggNY]

Sounds like you're sold on a diesel.

The diesels were very nice to drive. But the 3/4 ton trucks are just awesome in general. These were my first experiences driving diesels, and I'm definitely still taking all the pros and cons into consideration. I'd like to drive an F250 with the 6.2 next but trying to find one with the 4.30 gears first. I'd much prefer the simplicity and available of regular gas, but the performance of a diesel seems tough to compete with. I've been reading all the back and forth on here and definitely appreciate the opinions.

 

[F350joe]

Here its just an opacity test for diesels, you can be tuned with check engine lights on and half your emissions crap deleted and still pass as long as your not rolling coal on the dyno..

A gasser has to pass readiness and will fail inspection w/a CEL, even if it has absolutely nothing to do w/emissions.. any tunes that wont pass readyness wont pass emissions..

so yeah, here its easier to keep an old diesel on the road than an old gasser..

2003 and older diesels in California just get a visual inspection. My 7.3 has tons of mods, is straight piped, and passes no problem.

Brings up a point that has yet to be addressed. From 2003 up until recently, diesel trucks were far from a good value. You are either looking at a big price tag for a modern diesel or the nagging upkeep of an 15+ year old truck. That era of figuring out new emissions laws produced some real problematic engines that could cost you the price of a decent gasser just sorting out the diesel engine. The pre emissions diesel run on anything, anywhere, and millions were sold so parts can be found.

 

[tacollie]

Here its just an opacity test for diesels, you can be tuned with check engine lights on and half your emissions crap deleted and still pass as long as your not rolling coal on the dyno..

A gasser has to pass readiness and will fail inspection w/a CEL, even if it has absolutely nothing to do w/emissions.. any tunes that wont pass readyness wont pass emissions..

so yeah, here its easier to keep an old diesel on the road than an old gasser..

Big difference in 60 miles! My buddy just took his 2001 7.3 and they wouldn't even finish the test because a dash light came on.

 

[Adventurous]

My counterpoint to that is that the gasoline engines are left running up there as well. The gasoline fuel may not gel up the same way that diesel does, but it does in fact get more difficult to start up gasoline-fed engines the colder it gets. I've done more than a few cold starts (no heater cord plugged in) on gasoline engines in -30F mornings; trust me when I say the gasoline engine didn't enjoy that start up anymore than did the diesel.

With the advent of modern heating systems for the diesel, there is less of a discrepancy nowadays between it and gasoline in terms of cold starts....almost to the point of being an non-issue.





Only marginally so...that so-called "advantage" is overplayed and often brought up by people had bad experiences with older engines. FYI the 7.3l Powerstroke was notorious for having a finicky cold-start, even in mild temperatures....bad design on Ford's part.



The newer gasoline engines are more powerful, but then again so are the newer diesel engines...so I don't see what your point is there.

Diesel does cost more to fuel, maintain and buy...but they also retain greater values on the used market, last longer (on average), and get better mpg's. I think you'd be hard pressed to say that you would actually be saving substantial amounts of money by going with a gasoline 3/4 ton versus a diesel one, or vice versa. Bigger, more powerful trucks cost more to maintain and operate than do smaller trucks, which cost more than sedans. If you're truly concerned about cutting costs, get the smallest, most efficient midsized pickup you can find or, better yet, get a CUV or sedan.

Weight is a big deal...but I've yet to find an area where a 3/4 ton gasoline truck can make it through but a 3/4 ton diesel can't because of its added weight. Most overlanding in North America takes place on active or historical logging roads. Nor do I think you can categorically say that the heavier weight of diesels in general inhibits their offroad capabilities...it's all relative. The 2.8l duramax Colorado and 3.0l diesel F-150 should have no problems going the same places that all other midsized and 1/2 ton trucks can go.


Bottom line is that there is no right or wrong answer. There are some considerations for owning a diesel, but people tend to overexaggerate and embellish the "hardships" of diesel ownership, especially so on this forum. The OP, or any potential buyer, should approach any vehicle purchase with both eyes open, but there certainly isn't anything that should deter him/her from buying a diesel.

In my experience, with the exception of a few states thus far, diesel fuel has either been the cheapest or within a few cents of the cheapest grade of gasoline. Just looked while driving today and the local stations have both diesel and the lowest octane gas for $3.54/gal.

Here its just an opacity test for diesels, you can be tuned with check engine lights on and half your emissions crap deleted and still pass as long as your not rolling coal on the dyno..

A gasser has to pass readiness and will fail inspection w/a CEL, even if it has absolutely nothing to do w/emissions.. any tunes that wont pass readyness wont pass emissions..

so yeah, here its easier to keep an old diesel on the road than an old gasser..

Reaaaallly, for some reason I thought Denver and JeffCo were pretty strict with diesel vehicles. Buddy of mine who lives in JeffCo even registered his at a friend's place in the hills so he could do a delete on his 16' Cummins.

 

[Mundo4x4Casa]

To answer the OP; am I still happy I bought a diesel? Yes and no. I bought it new in 2001 with some assurance it would outlive me. So far so good.
The only thing I don't like about my 2001.5 Dodge Ram HO Cummins is

1. The noise. The 2001/2002 HO configuration of the Cummins is singularly the rattliest of the bunch. Some say it was the use of metal injector caps before they switched to plastic...I don't know. Part may have to do with the 'retuned' as opposed to the non-HO which was 'detuned' to save the transmissions of the time) nature of the HO version with its higher compression. To compound that woe, local squirels removed all the soundproofing from under the hood and used some of it to build a nest in my air cleaner during a frigid winter. That made the noise even worse.
2. It has lasted long enough that my wife has outlived her desire to drive this thing and does not want to drive the manual NV-5600 any more, easy as it is. This is a shame since we are heading out on a several month trip around the U.S. this fall with the truck camper.

On the plus side,

1. if i do my own oil changes the cost is not prohibitive
2. It has no smog devices: just a 4 inch exhaust pipe and one free flowing muffler. No soot bag; pee canister; or D.E.F. tank to service.
3. It has been trouble free with only a clutch change @ 160K miles and the upgraded lift pump moved to the frame and off the engine. Mind you, I've owned a lot of diesels, some pretty exotic (like our 1980 IHC Scout traveller with the factory installed Nissan 3.3L , I-6 turbo diesel) and understand the imperative for clean air and clean fuel.

Our running weight while traveling as an RV with the camper on is 10,400 pounds, with an average of 13-14 mpg, heavy enough to negate the use of a gas engine.
The final verdict, as may have been illucidated above, is the amount of miles you put on the vehicle. One mentioned 274K miles, or something like that to drive the 'diesel penalty' away. If you are in it for the short haul, a gas is the ticket. If you are young enough and plan to be in this mode for decades, you may be able to drive the diesel penalty away.
jefe

 

[Buliwyf]

Comp ratio and the mechanical injectors and pump, is why. Regular 6BT5.9, right?

 

[Mundo4x4Casa]

Buli,
Ours is the GEN II, 24 valve Cummins with electronic injection timing. Most of the GEN I's with mechanical injection pumps are very high mileage and suffer with less HP and TQ than the GEN II. I don't remember the exact TQ difference, but ours has 245 HP and 505 TQ, and i believe the GEN I's were 205 HP and 460 TQ, which seems awfully psaltry at the very start of the 'Diesel Warz' after which the mfgrs. upped the ante every year after. The difference in HO vs. standard was 235 HP/460 TQ for the standard detuned engine. My numbers may be off since I'm on the road, but the C.R. was something like 17.2 for the detuned engine and 19.1 for the H.O. which accounts for the increased TQ.
Nothing like the Nissan T.D. which in 1980 had a 23.5:1, soot belching compression ratio that ate starters for breakfast.
101 neck snapping H.P. in a cast iron block mechanically injected 6 cylinder engine that weighed 875 pounds and with a heavy flywheel had real TQ all the way down to 300 rpm. Under load at 500 rpm it was almost a John Deer sound alike. We would normally get 20-23 mpg loaded for camping.
They were used primarily on boats in pairs to cross the wide oceans.
jefe

 

[GreggNY]

Perceived performance can be deceiving.. loud noises can make you feel like your going faster than you are.. so can torque

The 2500 6.4 Hemi gasser specs out at 7.7 sec 0-60, diesel 8.8 ...0-60...

I didn’t really mean off the line and definitely wasn’t testing 0-60 times. More when underway and moving along, the Cummins seemed to respond immediately to the gas pedal and accelerate quicker than the hemi. It just felt like the Cummins barely needed any help speeding up and pulled harder.

 

[IdaSHO]

This is true. It is crazy how much gas trucks depreciate. When we bought the Tundra we also looked at F250s. 6.2 gas was half the cost of 6.7 in our area with comparable trim and milage. Literally $14k vs $28k for trucks around the 100k mile range. I'm cheap and don't pull heavy loads so I wrote diesel off.

Far too many people treat the lower resale value of a gasser as a bad thing.
Ever notice how its always the diesel owners that push this notion, as if to justify their purchase of a diesel

Low mileage gassers can be had cheap, and is more often than not the smarter choice when buying used.
Buying a used modern diesel is often a problem waiting to happen.
All too often you are buying somebodies chipped toy or limping problem (or both), all the while paying more than you would for a perfectly good gasser.

 

[IdaSHO]

I didn’t really mean off the line and definitely wasn’t testing 0-60 times. More when underway and moving along, the Cummins seemed to respond immediately to the gas pedal and accelerate quicker than the hemi. It just felt like the Cummins barely needed any help speeding up and pulled harder.

The cummins will certainly have more torque down low, but much is probably due to factory tuning of the Hemi.

Not sure about the Hemi, but the Ford 6.2 gasser is torque limited at low RPMs via the factory tune.
Makes the truck more tame, feel a bit more refined, and is easier on drivetrain.

Add a chip, or something along the lines as a pedal commander, and things change dramatically.

 

[chet6.7]

I didn’t really mean off the line and definitely wasn’t testing 0-60 times. More when underway and moving along, the Cummins seemed to respond immediately to the gas pedal and accelerate quicker than the hemi. It just felt like the Cummins barely needed any help speeding up and pulled harder.

The Hemi is faster 0/60 but on the hwy the CTD can move along easily as you mentioned. The stock programming has a fair bit of torque management baked in to save the drive train,I suspect a CTD doesn't get full power until 4th gear.
I don't know if you have had a chance to drive a grade,my CTD rolls over my local 7% grade much better than my V10 did. About half way up the grade when the speed they built up approaching the bottom of the grade dissipates,the gassers have to push it harder while the CTD just hums along,torque baby. The exhaust brake is a nice feature when going down a grade.
I don't deny there are issues with modern diesels,so far mine has run well,but I do worry about the emission controls over time.The gas emission package is more refined as it has been developed over a much longer period of time,it is fairly new to diesels.
The main reason I would get a Ram is for the CTD,I would probably look elsewhere if I was going with gas.
I hope what you can afford, and what you like, are the same,life is to short to drive a vehicle you aren't happy with.

 

[Buliwyf]

I'd jump to Ford for gas as well. Fiat absolutely refuses to address the cam bearing, lobe, and roller lifter issue in the gas trucks and Chargers. It's been 13 years, they haven't put any effort into it at all.

Just got back from a job for the local DOT. Their garage was ''Hemi Heaven''. Brand new Hemi crate engines stacked up for trucks and police chargers. They keep an inventory of engines now. I think they send the bad ones out for rebuilds and rotate them back into inventory.

''Sorry kid, you got the wrong end of the stick there. We're in Hemi hell.''

Death knell for our fleet is when Fiat opened their mouths too much and said ''Over 20% idle is too much''. Pretty much stepped on their own balls then. GM and Ford are pushing 60% idle without issues. Normal driving is about 16%, any kind of outdoor work truck is at least double that. Triple for me personally.

 

[Highlander]

I think RAM will do even better when it introduces a new 8-10 speed for the Cummins engine. It will improve mpg too.
Also since Ford is camping up with a new and big gas engine the rest of the big two should have to fallow.

Apparently ram Cummins is becoming very popular in Australia too.
There are some great videos on YouTube what they do over there with rams.

 

[dreadlocks]

Reaaaallly, for some reason I thought Denver and JeffCo were pretty strict with diesel vehicles. Buddy of mine who lives in JeffCo even registered his at a friend's place in the hills so he could do a delete on his 16' Cummins.

I got mine tested 2 years ago for Arapahoe County, had to find an AWD dyno which was a lil difficult.. but they didnt plug anything into my vehicle, look under the hood or under the vehicle.. just hooked up a few sensors to exhaust pipes, strapped it down to dyno, then railed on it a couple times and gave me my certificate.. think I'm about due for another one.. same thing for my previous diesel car, never touched OBD2 or inspected for any missing emissions components.