Rednecktastic

I'm looking at buying one for temporary uses. A friend of mine offered me a fair price on my current truck and I wish to invest the money and buy another diesel later this year.

Regardless I need a work truck for the time being and I'm running across 08-09 1500 ST longbeds for around $10K with fairly low miles on them.

I'd just throw a set of factory alum 17 inch take offs and an SLT foglamp front bumper on it so it doesn't look too plain jane.



I bet it's slow but are these good trucks, how about MPG?

kthiemann

I don't know anything about the 3rd gen 1/2 tons but my sister in law had a 2000 V-6 half ton and it was a pretty good truck, it would haul just about anything she wanted to haul and got in the upper teens, low 20s for fuel economy.

HMX-1

I just picked up an '04 1500 ST for my oldest and we're getting well over 20 MPG with the 3.7L V-6.


And it's not too slow .... once it gets rolling it's not half bad, but you do notice the lack of low end torque the Cummins makes.

Grit Dog

Ya think?

My boss had a 03? 1/2 ton V-6 and it hauled him around for years without any problems, only normal maint. Probably sold it w/ around 150k mi.

grouch

I had a '94 but it had the 3.9 V-6 not the 3.7. You could speed in it if you had enough room to get up to speed. On long grades it really lost speed. However, around town it was just fine and I got better mileage than I expected. It had 140K when I got it and was fair on economy. Too much timing chain slap had me replace the timing set with a V-8 style tensioner and chain set. After that, I thought at first somebody was messing with me by adding fuel to give me outrageous mileage and then later would siphon fuel out to drop it. My 1994 Ram 1500 with V-6, automatic and tilt, cruise and air got an average of 24-26 mpg on level roads. I had a tonnau over the bed mainly to cut down on five finger discounts from my neighbors. It didn't make much difference going straight but heavy cross winds no longer made the truck change lanes. Now, in traffic, hilly roads and such, you won't get 26 mpg with a large pickup but I figure any gas truck that gets 20 or more mpg is doing good.

SIXSLUG

My dirt guy has a 96 shortbox with the v-6. He bought it new and as far as I know he never has had a problem with it. Its a beater but it keeps going...