I decided to get the diesel after renting a travel trailer this summer and pulling it 2000 miles with my 95 1/2 ton GMC and only getting about 6 miles per gallon.(That was enough of that non-sence,LOL!!!) In the winter time I pull a 2 place snowmobile trailer with a couple of sleds, (about 4 months out of the year), I know it's relatively a light load but I was only getting 7-8 MPG with the gasser and figure I should be able to get around 14 with the new diesel. I also would like the extra power and torque for passing, esp needed for those wintery, mountain roads, kind a scary at times with the gasser.

We plan on getting a 5th wheel in a year or two so obviously I wanted to get the truck first.

I drive our van about 75 miles round trip to work each day and figured it would be better driving that then putting 15,000 commuting miles on each year on the new truck, sooo the wife takes it to work.

Just trying to weigh all the cons of the daily short trips with the diesel, might have to look at a cheap rice burner or something.

Thanks for the input, I'm very new to the diesel thing and there's a little more to consider than I initially thought. Seems like it will be fine once I learn all the dos and don'ts of owning one.

 

If it was me I WOULD walk or ride a bike, but after convincing the wife that we needed this $30,000 +++ truck, I don't think it would be a good idea for me to tell her it would be better for the truck for her to walk to work!! LOL If I did that I would also be taking up permanent residency in the dog house.

 

By the way where do you live? it is that cold already? when I first bought mine, on cold nights I ddin't plug it in, next morning heat grate would take a while to warmed up then I wouldnt have any heat coming out for 10 miles plus. I after I started plugging it in, heat almost instantly. Problem was one morning my wife took it to take the dogs to our other property, didn't check to see if plugge in and drove off, no damage to the plug but a week later it started leaking, ruined my block heater, warrenty covered. Just take some time with your wife and explain to her to always check. I put mine in the shop so I started leaving the hood up when plugged in to REMIND her. worked too. Anyway, I plug mine in anytime it is 40 degrees and below, may be over kill, but nice to get in a truck that is already half way warmed up. cheers and enjoy, give it a few months you will have NO regrets

 

hey snow man, just read the message boards and you will find that most people having problems with their trucks are people who are pulling all the time, racing, and very high mileage.

I have not seen a post in the last 6 months of someone saying i use my truck very little and i broke something. I'll give you a good example, my dad has 95 12valver with 90,000 absolutely no problems, he's original owner mostly short trips city driving.

just use a heater and stop worrying so much. live it up man, enjoy.

 

It would probably use less energy charging the battery on a golf cart vs plugging in a Cummins for a one mile commute.
A daily one mile drive on a Cummins would be like torturing it to death...

 

Any way you can get her to drive the van and you drive the truck??? Miles on a diesel is like sugar coating on candy... and it would probably get better fuel milage (depending on what kind of van)...

 

Ya I could take the truck, I guess it's just going to be an adjustment to think that more miles is better LOL. i thought it would be better to keep the miles down as much as possible??? Right now the van gets about 3 mpg more than the truck. about 16.5 vs 19.5 mpg at 75mph.

 

One mile trip on gas or diesel engine is bad as stated in other posts. We get them in the caddy shop once in awhile. You know our clientel for cadillacs.....
older crowd etc. They put around to church, then home( a mile or so at 20mph) Then to the grocery store( a mile or so at 20mph) anyhow you get the picture. The engine don't get hot enough to burn off the carbon so you get carbon deposits and funk. We can usually get by with a throttle body cleaning and go out and test drive them Hazard County style, blow all the smoke/carbon out of them.

I liked the golf cart idea!!

 

Unfortuneately it's only about a 3 mile trip to anywhere in town where I live.

 

Letting it sit in the driveway or garage is a bigger waste than driving it around empty!!

 

You gotta remember that that's what the factory recommends. About 99% of people never listen to any of that. I've changed my tranny fluid maybe 3 times in 109k, front axle has been done once, rear is twice, transfer case once, coolant once, brake fluid never. When I had my stock turbo I'd just turn the truck off and never let it cool down (I do that sometimes with my aftermarket one as well). These trucks are really dumbed down for people who never do anything on them (such as my mom) except have the oil changed.

 

If you look into one of those Webasto/Espar heaters, it'll bring the coolant temp up close to operating temp. Much closer than a block heater (block heater doesn't even register on my temp gauge), runs off of fuel, so there is no chance of driving away with it plugged in. Theres a chart in one of my engine building books (for 335 and 385 series Fords) that shows the amount of cylinder relative to engine temp. The colder it is, the more wear takes place. Its an exponential thing, and at 140 degrees, the wear is quite severe. So getting it warm is quite important. Plugging it in helps a lot (-15C the grid heaters wouldn't even need to come on), but I think plugging it in at 40F is a bit extreme. I'd have to plug mine in for 330 days of the year if that were the case.

 

Of course, with a one-mile commute, even if the truck lasts 50K miles - your grandkids will still be driving it!

 

If you say so chief. I'd rather put 15k a year driving to work on a 2,000 car than a 35,000 truck. saved myself a ton of money, but why would anybody want to that? what a dumb concept

 

That's just crazy, if you aren't going to drive it why buy it, if you just want to look at it - go to the dealer!! I drive mine everyday because I enjoy it. I certainly don't want to drive around is some little POS car.