Gas or Diesel HD pickup?

Reliable tree man

Reliable tree man

New member
Location
Ontario
Looking at getting a new Chevy 3500HD (crew cab long box SRW) and would like people’s opinions on which is the smarter buy.

This truck would be used for tree work and would likely end up with a dump insert in it pulling 5500lb chipper.

I have a full time gig and am looking at expanding my side business and want to keep the overhead as low as possible. The rig would not be out every single day and most of my work is within 25km of where it would be parked. I have a car so the truck would not need to be a daily driver but would accompany me to work on the days I have jobs scheduled.

The gas seems like the smarter buy to me as it is substantially cheaper to buy and cheaper to repair.

Thanks.
 
I could not justify the added price of the duramx when we purchased ours.

Have 45 k miles in the last 15 months with zero problems.
 
TreeCo said:
I have no idea how 'keep the overhead as low as possible' and asking 'what engine to get in a new pickup truck purchase' could be anything other than mutually exclusive courses of action.
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Poorly worded on my part.

My statement about overhead was more to describe my business size. I’m not able to commit to a full size dedicated chipper truck and keep my job as the overhead would be too high. A pick up with dump insert could be parked at home and used for other purposes.

I tend to favour new vehicles and equipment as they are more reliable typically and I keep my stuff for a long time. There is a huge discount on gm vehicles through our local isa chapter as well so buying new starts to make more sense.
 
I wouldn't be inclined to buy diesel unless you drive 50k miles a year and think that you need the pulling power

The old days of simple/cheap/dirty diesels is long gone. They're complicated and expensive to maintain

Service technicians have a hard time keeping their knowledge and skills up to date with some diesels.

Get a gasser
 
Ours usually pulls about 10k pounds on a daily basis with the skid steer or other load. We have an Isuzu nqr for the chipper.
 
We only have 5k miles on it. So far my guys love it. Great maneuverability and does not feel the 20 yards of mulch. It is not the strongest truck out there but very nice for what we need. The Terex 720 is barely noticed behind it. Braking power is amazing! Fuel economy is not as good as I was expecting but we spend tons of time in crawling traffic.

It is a 2018 that replaced an old worn out NPR hd. The heavier duty nqr is definitely worth the extra coin.
 
Tom Dunlap said:
I wouldn't be inclined to buy diesel unless you drive 50k miles a year and think that you need the pulling power

The old days of simple/cheap/dirty diesels is long gone. They're complicated and expensive to maintain

Service technicians have a hard time keeping their knowledge and skills up to date with some diesels.

Get a gasser
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Tom is correct, unless you are going to work the truck hard and consistently the diesel is not worth the extra money. I started off with the same situation as you, full time job part time side work. In 2011 I bought a ford diesel for over $53k. 70,000 miles later (because of all the short travel 15 miles or less) I just dropped almost $1,200 on an EGR cooler rebuild. I’ve been told to expect it about every 70k. Not to mention diesel is $.10 more expensive then premium gas right now, I think the new technology has these gassers putting plenty of power out for what you are looking for.
A word of caution though a single rear wheel truck (gas or diesel) will consistently run overloaded because it’s only rated just under 12k. But it is a great business building set up followed by a small chipper!
 
All my shit is old. I research what is reliable and buy used. For pickups I like dodge 12 valves, have a dually and a regular, dually has 320k on it now and only work I've done to it in 10 years is put one trans in it. It's main duty is pulling our wheel loader around which goes with us on pretty much every job. I like chevy c6500 with cat motor and Allison trans, I have 3 of them, a 90 a 2000 and a 2001, I picked my last one up for $11k with 20' dump on it.. IMO buy used as all the problems have been worked out..
 
They have been all worked out or they are tirred or fixing all the problems that won’t stop popping up.

Down time kills.
 
In my limited experience guys that buy new have more downtime than I .

If they ever mandate tier 4 compliance I'm screwed!
 
pctree said:
All my shit is old. I research what is reliable and buy used. For pickups I like dodge 12 valves, have a dually and a regular, dually has 320k on it now and only work I've done to it in 10 years is put one trans in it. It's main duty is pulling our wheel loader around which goes with us on pretty much every job. I like chevy c6500 with cat motor and Allison trans, I have 3 of them, a 90 a 2000 and a 2001, I picked my last one up for $11k with 20' dump on it.. IMO buy used as all the problems have been worked out..
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Agreed! 12v cummins is a million mile motor, when serviced properly/regularly. Also plentiful. Just find one not in the rust belts.
 
I have the exact truck you describe. 3500 crew cab, long bed, with SRW. I love mine. I bought it new in 2012 and it has 22k miles as of today. That's why I bought the gas. I don't have a dump insert in it but it pulls the log trailer and carries the tools.
On another note my F550 diesel is currently in the shop going through the whole EGR everything. Not cheap!

Chris
 
One thing you really have to look at if you're going to tow with it constantly is what the fuel economy will be towing your load. I have an 01 F550 with a 7.3 6 speed. I get 11 to 12 mpg towing our chipper or mini skid. I have a friend that though he was getting a deal by buying a gas F550 V10 auto. He gets 5 to 6 mpg doing the same tasks which is all he uses the truck for . His fuel bill is almost twice what mine is and he still doesn't have as much power pulling the hills around here with a load. He paid $3K less than I paid for mine. He's had a bunch of repair bills. I've had mine longer and my repair bills have been much less overall. My truck was one reason he bought one as he saw it working well for us. Sometimes gas is a false economy.
 
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