my truck i got this year, it was sitting in my uncles drive way for a year or so, and the rear end was blown and it was up on blocks, with a real bad stench and the king pins mad it look like it landed face first on the ground. so one day me and my uncle were building his cabin and i never said anything about it and hes like so, howd u like to have the old cummins in the driveway?, i said yes, even though dad said it wasent happening, and then we got papers transfered over and he said id never get it running (he never knew that the TV cable was out of adjustment), so i got the rear end refabbed at school and threw it in there, truck started up after a few cranks, then we loaded er on the trailer and took it home, $2383 later i got it running real good and plenty of power, now i think he regrets giving the truck to me, and my dad now knows i can actully get a truck to good condition again. the truck dident even need any motor parts or tranny stuff, it was only bearings king pins, seals and a new front spindle and oil pan gasket and plenty of time to get it cleaned out and half decent looking again, the rest was just goodies i added to it every pay cheque. now my uncle and my other mechanical family members who said id get a year out of it if im lucky, now say ill get many years out of it haha.

 

After college my old roommate bought himself a Dodge with the Cummins and I have to admit I thought he was out of his mind. He loved the truck and bragged it up constantly saying it would outpul anything out there and get 20 mpg doing it. I just laughed and thought he was silly driving such a big and loud rig around empty 90% of the time and only occassionally pulling some snowmobiles or a small camper.

In late 2003 my father in law showed up one day test driving a brand new Duramax that he ended up buying because he wanted a big diesel truck because of the tax writeoff! He had been driving a 97 Suburban and after 185k miles he put 2 trannies in it because of pulling his pontoon boat back and forth once a year to the lake. Again - I thought he was nuts.

Fast forward a year or 2 and I suddenly find myself towing my 97 Jeep Wrangler around with a 1/2 ton Chevy extended cab and working way to hard to do it. Many of my new Jeepin' buddies were driving diesels they too were sold on the efficiency and pure pulling power of the diesel trucks. I thought about how much I would love to have one - but I was lucky enough to have my wife let me drive a $4000 gasser - stepping up to an expensive diesel that didn't have 300k miles on it was almost out of the question if I were to remain married.

Anyway - I sold my truck and had decided that I would just drive a beater Honda Accord to save money on gas and my Jeep would just be driven to the trail instead of riding on a trailer. 4 months later spring came and I really missed having a truck. I began shopping for something cheap and after having good luck with GM trucks I looked for a 96-99 3/4 ton extended cab gasser. I stumbled on an older 6.5L model and drove it and I then turned my thinking to maybe getting a diesel. I drove a few older Chevy's, a couple of Ford Powerstrokes and even a 2wd Duramax. It seemed that most of the trucks that I looked at were work trucks, had a ton of miles or were just generally beat up.

I then stumbled on a 97 ext. cab 4x4 on Craigslist that only had 118k miles and it was from CA so there was no rust! My wife and I went to look at it and the guy had it shined up really, really nice so it looked much cleaner than anything else I had looked at. They guy had driven it to MN less than 1 year earlier and he even installed a full WVO fuel system with heated lines and a 2nd tank so it could potentially run on virtually free fuel. Other than that it was 100% stock except for the 5th wheel hitch and brake controller that were also installed. We decided to take the plunge and bought it using a cash advance from a 0% credit card (bad idea normally) that I promised would be paid back in the year I had to do it. $10k with no interest and I was a happy camper.

Once I had the truck I started driving it almost daily. I quickly figured out that it had 4.10 gears and that the mileage was not what I expected and I got kind of bummed - until I put my slide in camper in it and towed the Jeep! This thing is great and years ahead of the 1/2 gasser that I replaced. Much to my dismay it got hit with hail in August and my pretty truck now had $3700 worth of hail damage. The crazy part is that because the truck is white you can hardly tell - and I have decided that I will probably only fix the hood since that is the only place where you can really see the damage. The rest of the money is going to pay for the truck - and the a few upgrades like the 3.55 gear swap that I did back in November. That's my long winded story.

 

My dad bought his 92 when I was eleven years old. I fell in love with the strange diesel sound at a young age. He now has a hard 315k on the ticker, still running like the day he bought it.
Seven years ago I found my 93 with a babied and garaged 36k on it. I jumped on it, best investment I made to date. Has not left me stranded once over seven years and 90k miles.

 

Well my 92' used to be my fathers until he passed away suddenly in Sept. of 05. I had a 04' 1500 that I was driving then and I kind of just fell into the 92'. I had driven it before but compared to my 1500 I thought it was pretty slow and sluggish, and that's how I ended up perceiving all diesels were for a while. I started driving it regularly and more then my 1500 actually I don't know why. I soon found that I could get 17 mpg with the 92' on my daily drive rather than a consistent 13 with my 1500. I ended up towing a few times with the 92' and you never notice the torque of these things until theres a load behind you, wow was I impressed. It was only a flatbed with a JD Gator on it but the truck didn't even notice it was back there. I would get fed up with it alot though and still do to this day because unless you floor it, it's a slug. But it's like I tell my girlfriend, "Show me another 3/4 ton truck of the same model year that gets that good of mpg, it does better than most of the new ones".
I had been having transmission problems with it for a while, and still do to this day, where it will stick in 1st and won't want to shift into 2nd like it should, it'll work fine when the transmission is cool its just once it gets to operating temp it does this. I took it to a Trans. Shop and the mechanic test drove it, basically just worked the thing to see if he could get it to do something, but it didn't show up for him. He told me it operated normally and there wasn't a problem that he could see. Well yeah, when you accelerated with your foot to the floor the whole time there isn't a problem, it's when your accelerating normally for mileage so how does flooring it help me there?. Well during this time while it was at the trans. shop for a few days, I was driving my grandfathers 01, wow night and day difference. That thing would, "s**t & git", and it was gettin me great mpg doing it, that was the truck that changed my whole prospective on diesel. I mean the 92' helped, but that 01' just flip me over there, that was what got me hooked.
So since then I have been wanting a new one or atleast a 01' or 02' but finding one I wanted locally was hard so I figured I was probably going to end up getting a new one. I had been keeping tabs on the dealerships to see if they had any good deals. Well I came across a deal that Ourisman Dodge in Alexandria, VA had around Presidents Day weekend in Feb. of 07. They had two identically optioned 2006 trucks, one was dark red and the other patriot blue. Both were regular cab 4x4 duallies w/ a cummins in each. They were both a regular $44,xxx and the dealership had cut them down to 33,xxx specifically for that weekend. I had never driven a dually before but after driving the 92' it adapted me very well to driving something like that. So I went up and looked at these trucks and It was a hard decision because I knew I wasn't going to trade the 92' in so I would have to be the 04' then. It was hard because that was the truck my father had bought me and that was tough to swallow if I traded that in. But I looked at the truck and I really liked it and ended up buying it and trading the 04' in. At first the day after I regretted it for a few hours but then I was like a kid at christmas with it once I was driving it more. So far my 06' so far has been an awesome truck, it hauls a** with everything in tow and gets better mpg than my 1500. There have been a few gripes I have had with it but I know there only because it isn't broken in yet with only 15k on it so no worries. The only thing I might have changed if I could've would be a manual transmission, 3.73's, and possibly a quad cab because there have been times when the room is needed. O and I wish it wasn't so quiet, I like the rattle of the old ones. But really I'm very happy with it.
I still driving the 92' regularly because it gets better mpg than the 06' at the moment but I don't think that'll change much because of the gearing. But as I said, I'm very happy with my trucks and can't wait for the warranty to run out on my 06' so I can do some stuff to it.