Hotshot Connect Forum :: Ford vs Dodge

BR3026

So, here I sit. I have the trailer I want picked out and I pretty much know what I need to do to get legal. To finish the business plan and see if all this is going to be worth it, I need to choose a truck. I'm going to tank my 2001 F350 and buy...........

I love that Ford, and I'm thinking F450 with the new twin turbo motor, but I've heard talk that Dodge beat Ford in MPG, on the other hand - 26k with a goose and massive everything.

Maybe you see my delema, maybe you don't. Let me know what you think.

mhlogistics

The F350 and F450 being used by a few guys working with us are having multiple problems. The 6.4 has already caused one of the guys working with us to go out of business. He had somthing like 7 or 8 break downs within 18k miles. The f450 gets pretty bad fuel mileage pulling a load also. Average 7mpg.

Have you considered the Dodge 4500? One of the guys working with us has one and others here are buying them. He has less than 20k on it and he's seeing 10mpg loaded with 15k lbs of freight on a 9200lb trailer. We all think he'll see around 13mpg when it finally breaks in. He has the 4.44 gear ratio in it. 100k mile engine warrantee and 180k mile/3 year warrantee on his Aisin automatic trans.

The few guys here that went to medium duty trucks are regretting it. All their seeing is 7mpg also.

bth9461

BR, what type of trailer did you decide on and how much weight do you plan to Gross for full load ( how much do need to pull)? Are you looking new or used?

I like the Internaitonal trucks but a guy that works for one of their dealerships said that they were having just as many problems with their medium duty DT series motors, same engine as Ford. If the Ford has an Internaitonal motor 6.0 or 6.4 or even a big DT570 I would not take a chance on them.

I doubt if any Medium Duty will get better than 10 MPG loaded even after break in. The range I here is maybe 10-9 mpg for the duramax and Cummins/Cat 9.5-8 Mpg. Which I think is pretty good, I doudt that the dually's running heavy 30-36k gross are getting much better than that. They might even get worse because of how hard they are working the engine. Much of this depends on what your pulling and how YOU pull it. The driver can make a Difference.

A Medium duty with a 4.4-5.0 gear ratio might get 13-14 bobtailing. For planning purposes I would deduct 10% from your best MPG guess-timate to be safe, it never seems to be as good as we hope.

What you plan to pull and where you will do it makes a big Difference. Get the truck that will do the Job. Whats the Wagon?

Brian

Tom Cobb · Site Admin

Ford and International are having court battles about the engine. Int is accussing Fprd of developing a replacement eng built by Ford. This thing is nasty and my advice is to stay away from any Ford product and especially the trucks. Ford has fianancial problems and they aren't getting any better. There is a boycott against Ford because they pour money into homosexual organizations and have forced employees into homosexual sensitivity training. The have been asked by many dealers and Christian organizations to stop supporting these organizations and they refuse. The boycott has been acknowledged by some business writers in papers and magazines as having a big impact on Ford. This coupled with their other problems I would not touch one of the products. On top of that I WILL NOT support Ford's giving money to queers.

BR3026

Thanks for the input. After bouncing around the blogs on both powerstrokes and cummins, it seems there are ALOT of unhappy powerstroke folks out there while almost all blogs sing the praise of the cummins. Needless to say, I got a Dodge product guide today and taking some advice - looking into the 4500 Chasis Cab and 3500.

I figure a 40' or 45' Flat Deck trailer would be what I would start with and if things go well, maybe look into a hydraulic boat trailer for s**ts and giggles. As for weight, I'm assuming a trailer w/ 3 7000lb axles would carry about 13500 lbs (am I right). That being said, I can only pull what the truck can pull. F350= 17,700 and the F450 = 24,000 // 3500= 16,450 and 4500 = 17,550 according to each manufacture. In my opinion, Ford wins in tow weight and interior, also when you get the Dodge "mega cab" (which is basically the size of the Ford crew) - you're stuck with a 6ft bed. Appearently the mega cab is not available in the chasis cab dodge. All that said, MHLogistics' experience and Tom's info, not to mention what bth9461 says tells me Ford can say they can pull a 747, but if she don't run or they can't support their product....

I think the medium duty truck is out for several reasons: PA requires 6 month inspections on the bigger truck, high cost of registration, fuel ecconomy (I have an International 4900 box truck getting 8-10mpg loaded & I had a F750 custom hauler that did even worse), higher cost of maint. and frankly, if I do this and fail the pickup can still be used for my autoracing tasks or sold a bit easier.

I spoke with Banks and they claim their PowerPack system will get me about 3mpg more and I'm pretty good at squeezing the mpgs while towing so I'm hoping for 13-15mpg give or take depending on the load.

Regarding the 3500 @ 16450 or the 4500 @ 17,550; if the trailer is 7500lbs, is loading 8950lbs or 10,050lbs going to make me any cash? To make this work I need to make at the very least - $4200 a month after expenses. **IS THAT DO-ABLE** mhlogistics: how is your guy towing 24k? What am I missing on these towing capabilities? I've overloaded a truck before and know they can handle more than the factory claims, but what about the legality?

bth9461

From what I can tell there is a moral and safety issue involved with towing more than the CGVWR, and maybe a warranty issue to. But it seems that it is completely legal to rate a dually + 24k trailer for 36k+. You might have some extra liabilty if you kill or hurt some one in an accident. They would not let you plate them if it was not legal. You must use your own judgement here. Even at 26k I am over the specs of the D-max.

I am going over the 26k barrier with my dually soon, I have a new 25k gooseneck that is waiting to be picked up. I have run the past 3 years under 26k. You can make a profit under 26k, but I think it would be hard to get to your $4200 net profit with a small rig. If I ran more and with my contacts I have now I could, but not starting out cold. I think I can run about 100k miles with this new trailer and clear 70k.

If you limit yourself to 9-10k cargo you will need a lot of very light weight freight (dedicated freight). I can haul 11k and stay under 26k, most of the time I only carry 8k or less. Unless you are hauling some specialized light freight all the time, it can be tuff to stay loaded and keep your DH miles down.

To me this business pays you to haul weight and length, the more you can do the better. The dually is not the ideal truck to do that in my opinion. If I could have afforded to switch both the truck and trailer thats what I would do. But I had to choose, the trailer will make more money, so with the extra I plan to buy a larger truck as soon as I can. Totally undecided about the truck at this time though, except larger than a Dually.

Brian