MtViking- A little piece of paradise.

[Senile_Texas_Aggie]

Mr. @MtViking, sir,

The reason that I asked about your tractor and whether it was 2WD vs 4WD is that there is a YouTube channel of a guy in Canada who made snow chains for his 4WD tractor:

I figured that if he needed snow chains for a 4WD tractor then a 2WD tractor would definitely need them. But maybe not.

You mentioned the cost of ownership of diesel trucks. I own a 2017 Ford F350 6.7L diesel truck. I originally bought it when my wife and I were thinking of going RVing, and one of RVs we were considering was a 40 ft 5th wheel that weighed 20,000 lbs. So a little F150 gas wouldn't get the job done. Before we sold our house, we decided that we would prefer to buy a place in the country somewhere. I still have the diesel, whose factory warranty just expired. (I do have an extended service contract for it.) But with you mentioning the cost of ownership of a diesel, maybe I should consider selling it. What do you think?

Senile Texas Aggie

 

[Bruce]

If you don't NEED an F350 I'd dump it just to buy something that didn't suck so much fuel per mile. Those suckers are major expensive to buy and run.

 

[MtViking]

Mr. @MtViking, sir,

The reason that I asked about your tractor and whether it was 2WD vs 4WD is that there is a YouTube channel of a guy in Canada who made snow chains for his 4WD tractor:

I figured that if he needed snow chains for a 4WD tractor then a 2WD tractor would definitely need them. But maybe not.

You mentioned the cost of ownership of diesel trucks. I own a 2017 Ford F350 6.7L diesel truck. I originally bought it when my wife and I were thinking of going RVing, and one of RVs we were considering was a 40 ft 5th wheel that weighed 20,000 lbs. So a little F150 gas wouldn't get the job done. Before we sold our house, we decided that we would prefer to buy a place in the country somewhere. I still have the diesel, whose factory warranty just expired. (I do have an extended service contract for it.) But with you mentioning the cost of ownership of a diesel, maybe I should consider selling it. What do you think?

Senile Texas Aggie

If you don’t plan on towing very often, I personally would get a gas I think. Yours is pretty new I don’t know very much about all diesels especially the newest ones. There are a ton of diesel trucks here they are very popular, I love having the power I have and it gets better gas mileage than my gas one did. My biggest issue is I can’t do much of anything for maintenance myself because I just don’t have the experience. Look into parts for yours check prices. I have an 02 6.0 bullet proof (which means I dumped 8k into super building the motor to have less problems) and a 97 f250 7.3. I live driving them. But everything is expensive. And things will wear out. Glow plugs, injectors, fuel injection modules, fuel filters, oil filters. You have tranny coolers, oil coolers, turbos and parts for the turbos. That doesn’t even include cv joints and transfer cases and drive line stuff. Granted gas trucks have a lot of the same parts that wear out. But they are considerably cheaper for the parts and I can fix or maintain gas trucks easier myself which save a time on labor. I don’t want to tell someone what to drive that’s just my experience. In the last 2 years not including the major rebuild I’ve spent close to 3500 on random stuff. An oil change costs me $200 every 3000 miles and labor for that is only like $50 bucks. I just had an injector crap out, I haven’t even taken it in yet because I don’t have any extra money at the moment. Once I fix the injector I’m selling it and getting a gas truck. I’ll still get a 3/4 ton I probably won’t get a 1 ton just because I don’t tow very often and when I do a 3/4 ton will handle it fine for me. Just as a reference in the last 10 years with my wife’s Chevy suburban I’ve spent maybe 1400 bucks on general maintenance and a heater fan. Hope this helps. It’s kind of a broad scope lol.

 

[farmerjan]

We wouldn't have another gas "heavy" pickup but we do USE our trucks. Everyone of our diesels have been SUPER good as far as towing and hauling heavy stuff. Used to be diesel was quite a bit cheaper than gas and diesels became all the rage. Now it is more expensive so no fuel savings. But our F350 crewcab, 1 ton gets 18 mpg easy so not that bad. It is a 1998 maybe, has the 7.3. The 1997(6?) 3/4 ton, is not as good on fuel, 14 avg, supercab, and we use it 99% of the time to pull the cattle trailer. Same engine, different transmission. The bale trucks are all 1 tons, same engines, can haul 2 1500 lb bales easily. They have rougher tread tires and I don't know if we have ever even checked the mileage....they are there to work, not run long stretches on the roads. All trucks are straight drive except the automatic he had a bale bed put on for me because of my ankle and neither one of us is in love with it. Seems to not get very good fuel mileage at all, but we have mostly only used it for hauling bales so not a good comparison.
We regularly put 400,000 on a diesel engine before having to do any major work except normal maintenance. And we don't change oil etc every 3,000 miles, it gets done when we have time. Maybe not ideal, but I seldom get oil changed on my little ranger pickup before 6-10,000 miles.... Did have to do injectors and glow plugs on one of them, but none of our trucks were bought new either....everyone has had 100,000 or more miles on it when we got it. Had 470,000+ on one when it finally blew and the truck body was so rotten that it wasn't worth fixing. We beat that truck in the ground and it didn't owe us a penny.

In your case @Senile_Texas_Aggie , the diesel is probably more truck than you need since you are not going to be towing. A good 3/4 ton truck, gas, would do most all you would ever need to do on the farm if you have a trailer to haul your tractor to the shop, even can pull a fair sized camper/trailer if you wanted. You would probably get a fairly decent price for your truck if it is in nice shape without a ton of miles on it. I would not trade it in though, I would sell it outright. Since I am assuming that you would probably take it to a shop to do most of the maintenance, it would still be cheaper to do the normal stuff on a gas. We usually figure 2-250,000 miles on a gas vehicle though, nothing like the 400,000 on the diesels. Of course, any vehicle here has a "hard life" and they work every mile that they put on.

Newest vehicle we own is my 2000 Subaru...... one of my rangers is 1996, the other (4x4) is 1985. Have only bought one new vehicle in my life, my 1979 ford f150 supercab 2wd when I got divorced, and traded my little plymouth duster in on it because I needed a truck to haul hay and feed. Long ago sold with over 200,000 miles. Unless I win the lottery, I doubt I will ever buy new again..... cost too much, and lose too much when you drive them off the lot.... and payments are not in my plans.....

 

[Senile_Texas_Aggie]

Thanks, everyone, for your input. I'll give it some thought and if I decide to sell and get a new vehicle, I'll let you folks know.

 

[MtViking]

Thanks, everyone, for your input. I'll give it some thought and if I decide to sell and get a new vehicle, I'll let you folks know.

Part of my issues with my trucks is the fact that it gets so cold here too. The cold is rough on em. I have block heaters and use anti gel plus the “winter” diesel and I’ve still had em gel up before. But when it’s -20 for two weeks and not above 0 at all for almost 6 weeks there’s not a lot I could do. If I had a nice heated garage Maybe. This last winter was the coldest I’ve seen in a very long time. It’s was kind of funny actually because there was diesels on the side of the road all over the place. Everything from old ones to brand new fancy ones.

 

[MtViking]

And I think I attract lemons

 

[farmerjan]

I doubt you "attract" lemons as far as the diesels having problems in the winter. We have had some problems when we have had temps in the teens for a few days in a row. We also do not have garages, heated or not, to put them in. We have used the antigel stuff, and have found that just Kerosene works better mixed into the diesel fuel. But we don't get the bitter cold that you have there nor does even our less frequent 0 degree temps last for more than a couple days....

You just get rough temps there. I cannot imagine having diesel powered vehicles up there in that cold.

We also have a "winter diesel" here at the truck stops, even though we don't get near as cold. Also plug in any truck that is going to be used .

Is the snow still on the ground there?

 

[Mini Horses]

Never had other than gas vehicles. My little tractor is diesel but, rarely get the extreme weather/temps you get there. I couldn't deal in that weather. But, if the combo is that bad, why have the truck? Are the gas engines such an issue?

This adds a whole new dimension to living -- with house heating, animal feeding/watering, now driving -- no wonder the population is so low

 

[MtViking]

Never had other than gas vehicles. My little tractor is diesel but, rarely get the extreme weather/temps you get there. I couldn't deal in that weather. But, if the combo is that bad, why have the truck? Are the gas engines such an issue?

This adds a whole new dimension to living -- with house heating, animal feeding/watering, now driving -- no wonder the population is so low

I ask my self the same question. The reason I went with diesel was I was towing a 30ft camper at the time. I had a 92 f350 with a 460 gas engine in it. I literally couldn’t pass a gas station in it. And gas prices were crazy high. It was a beast of a pick up truck but only got 6-7 mpg when I was towing. My diesel gets 18mpg regardless of my towing or not. You can’t even tell you have anything behind you with the diesel. The power and torque is awesome. But over the years I’ve had 3 different trucks everyone has broke down too many times for me to justify haveing the better mpg or the extra towing capacity since I don’t tow a camper anymore. That’s why after new injectors I’m selling my truck. Both of them probably. The snow is still on the ground at my house, some has melted pretty good and by this weekend will be gone. It’s already gone in town with a few shady spots that might have a little. The nights are staying cold though. The lows have been in the 20s since Saturday night. The days are warming up.