Thoughts on a Cummins Mega Cab

[RU55ELL]

Here is my situation; my wife and I have 3 kids. We own an 07 Camry and an 87 Ramcharger. I have a 2011 Ram company truck, but is not supposed to be used for personal travel other than around town. Both of our cars are paid for and I don't have to spend a dime on the Ram, even for car washes. It's all covered by work. Now that we have our third child, the Camry is no longer feasible for trips longer than a couple hours. But, my wife, unlike most American women, does not want an SUV or anything bigger at all. She loves her car and doesn't want to drive anything larger around town and sacrifice the fuel economy that her car gets.

Work gives the option to take a $900/month allowance (taxed) and buy whatever I want, as long as it is a truck and can haul tools and equipment in the bed. They also cover 27.5 cents/mile for all business related travel. Now, my dad has an 09 Ram 3500 Mega Cab Cummins Dually, 4x4, 6-speed manual w/67k miles on it and 12k warn winch on the front. He got tired of dealing with emissions issues so he bought a low-mileage 01 Ram 3500 and is selling the 09. He would sell it to me for payoff, ~$20k. My allowance should cover it, but this means I would have to take out a loan for it, albeit only for 3 or 4 years. The nice thing is, work pays for my truck, we have something large enough to take looooong trips in, and when it's paid off, I just pocket the $900/month. But I am still having a hard time swallowing having to take out a loan on it since we are debt free other than a mortgage.

Another thought was, keep the company truck and get the Ramcharger reliable and comfortable enough, paying cash for mods and staying debt free. The problem is, this would require a lot of time, money and cash to make happen. I'm also not too keen on throwing that kind of money at it.

What say you, scholars and gentlemen?

 

[shortbus4x4]

Mega cabs are nice, lots of room in the back seat for when the kids get bigger. The only downside is being a dually/megacab means it won't be fun to drive around town much. Be a nice road trip truck though. I am also not a fan of the emissions packages on the 07 and newer diesels, lots more things to go wrong and they suck the mileage down compared to the older diesels.

 

[RU55ELL]

I've pretty much made up my mind, it'll get deleted if I were to buy it. Mileage goes way up and no more problems.

I also forgot to add that this truck could be used to haul the Ramcharger too.

 

[DoMiNiC1]

Sound like a good plan, 900 a month toward a 20000 loan should pay it off in around 2.5-3 years at around %5 I would think... 900 a month in you pocket after its payed off could buy some nice goodies. lol :sombrero:

 

[dzzz]

I wouldn't get a dually unless I had to.
But if you use it mostly rural maybe the dually doesn't matter.
What would the payments be per month be on exactly the right truck? I doubt more than $900.
I would only go diesel based on miles per year or needed tow/haul ability.

How about a new 1/2 ton 4x4 gas with a flip pac? That would be paid off in the same timeframe (more or less). You would have a new truck, and the back can be converted to camper on the weekend.

 

[GlennA]

My quesstion to you is, "are you getting $900/month use out of the current company vehicle?" If not, buy something even if it isn't the megacab. That sounds like a great deal on the megacab though. The mileage rate they are offering is less than the amount you are allowed to deduct(taxes) for company usage.

 

[Mark Harley]

Stay debt free! No loans! With the way things are going in this country play it safe.

 

[RU55ELL]

I wouldn't get a dually unless I had to.
But if you use it mostly rural maybe the dually doesn't matter.
What would the payments be per month be on exactly the right truck? I doubt more than $900.

I'm not sure you understand. The $900 is for payment, insurance, maintenance, etc. Everything that work is covering on my 2011 would not be covered anymore. Like I said before, everything down to carwashes is covered by work right now. If I took the allowance, I would have to cover EVERYTHING with the $900 and whatever extra comes out of my pocket.

Stay debt free! No loans! With the way things are going in this country play it safe.

That is definitely the way I'm leaning, but it's still not a done deal.

 

[RU55ELL]

Grab the megacab and give H&S a call for their full egr/dpr delete and tuner. No more DPF and clogged EGR issues

That was the plan if I bought it. Heck, that was what I kept trying to convince my dad to do with it, his 08 and his 07, both of which were bought back by Chrysler, all for the same problems. He was scared about losing his warranty if they found out he did it.

Another reason I would like to buy my dad's truck is that I know every detail of the history of it. Anytime you buy a used vehicle, you would take a gamble. I refuse to buy another new vehicle simply because the immediate depreciation when you buy it.

 

[lstzephyr]

How about keep everything the way it is and get Mom a station wagon. Still a car, still good mileage, etc. Could even go with a nice subaru or mercedes or something cool if she is in the same mindset as my sister and mom that station wagons are boring.

Otherwise I vote put a cummins in the ramcharger and fix its other issues. What kind of issues are you talking about anyway? You could probably redo the brakes/suspension/steering for 1000 dollars.

A megacab dually is a massive beast for a roadtrip mobile in my opinion. If it was srw it would be better, same if it was not so mega. How about any other crew cab truck? Although I guess you could always buy it, and resell it later if you didn't like it as those megas are worth more than 20k right?

 

[RU55ELL]

We talked about all kinds of different vehicles for her. The station wagon wouldn't solve anything. We don't need more cargo room, we need seating space and legroom. The RC isn't necessarily junk, I just don't drive it enough to work out any bugs/gremlins. I haven't had it very long and I don't want to find any unknown issues on the road with the family. The biggest things it needs is tires, AC, carb tune, different springs because the AAL kit beats you to death on anything other than smooth interstate. I'm not buying it just for a road trip mobile. I have to use it for hauling equipment, like mentioned in the initial post. This rules out anything smaller than a half ton truck, no cars and no SUVs. Any other crew cab truck will cost me more money and have an unknown history. Any other 3/4 ton truck will cost me at least another 8-10 grand for the same year model and mileage. I wish I could just buy a 3/4 ton because I would end up selling the RC altogether and use the new truck for double duty.

 

[lstzephyr]

I think it was Chevy, or buick or somebody that had a 7 seater station wagon. So did mercedes iirc. Limo? What about an avalon, those things are pretty big inside.

Lift/spring kit, tires, carb tune, and whatnot shouldn't be that bad. A nice alcan spring kit would smooth it out. Do you have time to do it? With a family of 5 that may be too much time intensive to you to be worth it. The advantage to the idea of fixing the ramcharger is then it isn't anything but a dedicated roadtrip vehicle. Plus I see the common idea of a new vehicle so somebody doesn't have to fix the old vehicle as kind of a fallacy. The old vehicle will still be broken, and instead you now have a new vehicle that necessitates maintenance. I'm not really directing that at you, it just seems to be a common idea of our cutlture that I think sorta applies here.

I just don't think the normal giant pickup is the best way to go, mainly because of mpg and cost. Gotta be a better way right? Seems that most people I know don't take trips because of the cost to run the vehicle.

Do you need the passenger space day to day for work? Since you have a work truck provided for work and paid by work, would you really want to replace that with your own vehicle that then gets beat up by work, even if they are paying you to use it? I'm not sure I would want to subject my truck to the beating I gave the work trucks at my previous jobs. Primarily I really didn't want my guys loading my truck the same way they loaded company trucks. Those dudes just threw crap at the trucks.

I'm just firing out ideas. Some will be way off target.

 

[Darwin]

I vote MegaCab cummins. Lots of leg room, you know the vehicle history. It can't be much harder than the Ramcharger to drive around town?

 

[sisu]

I understand having room for the family, and I would not worry about the stiff ride. We own the quad cab 8 foot bed. Our lab has the back to himself and the ride is great. 2500, auto trans, NO electronics(manual windows, door locks etc), air bags, ranchhand bumper, leveling kit and we ate pleased.

 

[4671 Hybrid]

Are you set on the Megacab? Why not buy something in a lower cost range that you could pay off much sooner? The debt will be less, you'll get a return on your investment sooner, and aside from not being a new truck, should do everything you want it to.

If you aren't set on a diesel, there's plenty of crew cab 4x4 trucks out there to choose from that are well shy of $20K.