Pickup Philosophy Question

[Soundguy]

The only time my pickups get washed is when the local high school cheer leaders are having a car wash.:laughing:

i will admit to washing my 450 about 6-7 times a year.. if the 350 is parked near it.. it may accidentally get washed too.. otherwise.. the 350 only gets washed when it rains..

 

[Bird]

yep.. for every user it will be a different cost.

I'm into preventative maint as well..

however onthat list, for sure all the oil/filter/bearing packing would have been in house.

the brake work, in house ont he 350 if rotors ok.. at shop if not ok.. on 450.. i tend to let the shop do the brakes as the darn 19.5" rims and tires weight a ton.. and dealing with 2 at a time on the rear is less fun.

power windows.. shop for sure.. i hate taking the door panels off..

Yep, until I moved back to town 10 years ago, I'd have done all that myself. The only thing the dealer did that I wouldn't have done myself was servicing the transmission. Can't say I like taking door panels off myself, but I knew what was wrong with the power window because I had the same thing happen on a Chrysler station wagon several years ago and I fixed it myself. And I also replaced the power window motor for a neighbor once on his Oldsmobile.

 

[Soundguy]

ugh.. some of them motors are a pain. the ones in my gmc yukon are some type of cable contraption. wifes window stuck down.. i had to pull the door panel and wedge a block of 2x4 in there to get the window up after all the cables were damaged...

 

[MossRoad]

I have a bad window motor on the 93 suburban. Don't want to tear into it yet. I can stil get the window closed if I pull the window past the point where the motor goes GRRRRRRRR. :laughing:

 

[PapaPerk]

You can tell if it's a necessity or a lifestyle:

• shine vs. dirt
• smooth body vs. dents
• neat vs. cluttered
• sparkly clean windows vs. doggie nose-prints on the windows
• well-groomed driver vs. scruffy-looking driver
• nice carpet vs. worn-out floor mats
• same color on all exterior parts vs. mismatched panels, doors, etc.
• bumper stickers ?
• beverage stains ?
• tools tossed in the cab ?
• dings in windshield, fog lamps, taillights
• amount of dirt, dust, grass, etc. that blows out of bed when driving
• actual, well-used gun - or tools - in rifle rack
• too new to be antique, but not by much (truck, not driver) (OK, both)
• size of ball on hitch

By the way - I may have the ultimate mismatched body parts (on one of my trucks, not me): Ford Ranger seats and Ford Ranger tailgate on a Mazda ... or as my better half calls it, a hybrid.

I could go on, but I'll bet other readers have better clues than I do.

Good maintenance shouldn't be confused with lack of use (ie, babied).

 

[Soundguy]

Good maintenance shouldn't be confused with lack of use (ie, babied).

i've seen babied machiens that never get used SUFFER worse than light to medium use -well- maintained machines. tractors ar ethe same way.

I have machiens I mow with weekly that are near60 ys old. neighbor across has one not even 20ys old they is parked 99% of the time. every time he needs it tires are flat.. battery is dead, and something on it like relays stick and whatnot.

seals on pto and axles leak for a few hours.. but then dry up after use... then it gets parked again. untill the next time he needs it, and has to take 2-3 hours of work on it to revive it. I've had to go set lanscape trees for him off a delivery truck when his 'new' tractor would not start, using an old beater 1955 ford 850 that smokes and rattles but starts EVERY time he bemoans the fact that his new machine is a pos.. I tell him it's a fine machine.. he just needs to use it a lil bit. One summer I went over to help him get it gong as he wanted me to MOW for him ( yeah right.. he's got a tractor and wants me to mow for him! ).. i went over and got his tractor runnign for him.. aired tires.. charged bat.. changed oil, and fitlers.

oil filter had date on it from purchase oil was low and looked like tar..

 

[Bird]

i've seen babied machiens that never get used SUFFER worse than light to medium use -well- maintained machines. tractors ar ethe same way.

Yep, like the old story of the car for sale that was only driven to church by a little old lady.:laughing: We don't put a lot of miles on our vehicles, but we do drive them frequently and long enough at a time to get up to normal temperature. I usually drive the speed limit, but as I taught my wife to do when getting onto freeways, we accelerate briskly to get up to the speed limit.

 

[aczlan]

Yep, like the old story of the car for sale that was only driven to church by a little old lady.:laughing:

Dad had a '84 Volvo 760 Diesel sedan who's first owner was a doctor who drove it 2 miles to the office and back. The next guy bought it, opened it up on the highway and lost compression (killed rings). Running back and forth on short trips killed it. Cars need to be warmed up and let breath once in a while.

Aaron Z

 

[santagary]

I have 4 trucks and am looking for another old chevy or ford to restore and piddle with this winter. Our road car is an old Lincoln Town Car which gets 27+ mpg. Three Kubotas, two atvs and two snowmobiles finish the list.

 

[genusCastor]

I just did a bit of reading on this. Certainly not comprehensive.

It depends on whose numbers you read.

QFT

I've seen this topic debated on numerous forums, a consensus is never reached, and folks end up believing what they want to believe...and have numbers to back their beliefs.

FTR, my daily driver is a Dodge 1-ton dually with a 9' flatbed.

- djb

 

[Soundguy]

QFT

I've seen this topic debated on numerous forums, a consensus is never reached, and folks end up believing what they want to believe...and have numbers to back their beliefs.

FTR, my daily driver is a Dodge 1-ton dually with a 9' flatbed.

- djb

it's one of those deals where every situation is gonna be different.

if you never haul anything and just drive to work in an inner city and deal wit limited curb b parking and garages.. well.. a crew cab dually is probably not a great choice.. if you haul cattle weekly.. it is..

my daily driver is a cc dually.

 

[Soundguy]

QFT

I've seen this topic debated on numerous forums, a consensus is never reached, and folks end up believing what they want to believe...and have numbers to back their beliefs.

FTR, my daily driver is a Dodge 1-ton dually with a 9' flatbed.

- djb

it's one of those deals where every situation is gonna be different.

if you never haul anything and just drive to work in an inner city and deal wit limited curb b parking and garages.. well.. a crew cab dually is probably not a great choice.. if you haul cattle weekly.. it is..

my daily driver is a cc dually.

 

[varmint]

Just an aside to the pickup stories... I bought a brand new Chevy Work Truck in 2004, to replace my old WT that was getting up in mileage and maintenance costs. But, I just wasn't using it enough to justify the annual registration/insurance costs, now that most of our big homeowner projects are finished, and my 90 year old neighbor kept saying he wanted it, so I sold it him, with all of 9000 miles on it, in 2009. He's now turning 94, the poor truck has about 12,000 miles on it, but because he can't see out of one eye and really shouldn't be driving anymore (just very short trips not far from where we all live) the truck looks like ****. About every body panel has been scrapped, dinged, torn off or crushed slightly. And where I used to wash and wax it, he hasn't touched it. Maybe changed the oil once? Sad to see what happened to it. The row of mailboxes out on the public road is constantly being attacked by him, much to everyone's consternation. I will occasionally borrow it when I help him do something, but since the inside of the cab now looks/smells like an old barn, I am careful what clothes I have on.

 

[dmccarty]

... I will occasionally borrow it when I help him do something, but since the inside of the cab now looks/smells like an old barn, I am careful what clothes I have on.

When we were looking to buy land we were at one parcel with the 80+ year old farmer. He had been born in the house that his daddy built around 1900 that was still on the land. The farmer had moved off to another parcel. Anywho, some rabbit hunters were on his land and he wanted them gone so he asked me if I would ride out with to tell the trespasser to git. I said yes and off we went in his truck. He was a chicken farmer and that truck STUNK. I had to roll down the windows to breath. :shocked:

Many years ago I was working in a development where rich people spent the winter. One of the guys I worked with was a serious drunk. I mean serious. This was before MADD and this guy was a mess. He had a truck he like to use while working on the property. I figured he liked to use his truck because he would have always have access to booze. The truck was the cheapest model you could buy with vinyl seats and floor. He could puke in that cab and just wash it out. Problem was you could not wash out the STINK. I had to roll down the windows to be in that truck. :shocked:

He, the boss, and I were working on a fence line one hot, humid morning when around 10:00 we ran out of water. We had sent the drunk first thing in the morning to full up the water cooler so we could not figure out how we were out of water. We opened up the water cooler and the drunk SOB had put in a six pack of beer buried in the ice which meant we had no water.

Another morning we were cleaning out gutters on a two story building. The boss had enough sense to keep the drunk on the ground raking up the trash from the gutters. After a while he started laughing and I looked over and the drunk was passed out spread eagled in a flower bed. He just pass out from looking up. :shocked:

How that SOB kept his job was beyond me. Our immediate boss could not fire the guy since the man running the complex gave the drunk a job. The drunk was a flat out menace and we kept him away from anything dangerous. Well, as best we could.

Later,
Dan

 

[EricG1793]

My feelings are, if you need the truck at least several times a year, get it and not have a smaller vehicle, which adds maintenance, insurance, registration, tax, etc. expenses. Otherwise just get the smaller vehicle or even an SUV that will take care of most needs and borrow a truck when necessary.

My family had an '89 F150 XL, and we used it to haul garden debris, mulch, trash, fuel, when we relocated our music shop, when we moved our island in the kitchen from my aunt's to here, and it became my sister's first daily driver. It was affected by whatever paint issue Ford had back then and my dad was never notified by Ford and they refused to honor the warranty after he had found out about it after the time expired (that was our last Ford product other than a '97 Sable my grandmother bought for my mom), plus it had several issues that my dad didn't want to deal with so he got rid of it. Other than that, we've always gotten by with sedans.

The need comes up several times a year for a truck, though, most notably for moving our ATVs around (they've never been off the property since we got them around 10 years ago, except 1 that was hauled away by a friend with a borrowed trailer so we could work on it at his shop). Also the previously mentioned things continue to pop up, plus things like moving lumber around since our house is now 20 years old and needs work. My dad also has a large welder that's at his workplace's headquarters 3 hours away that will probably never make it down here.

We also live a mile and a quarter down a partially privately-maintained road (we need gravel delivered) and things get ugly in the spring ("mud season") and winter... very hard on the sedans; every one of them has gotten stuck in snow/mud/ditch at one point or another, we need front-end alignments frequently, suspension wears out quickly, we get flat tires frequently.... Anyway, the point is, it's not always hauling stuff that makes a truck appealing.

My neighbor has a Chevy Volt as her daily driver and an Escalade EXT for winter/mud season/long trips and to use to haul around her pottery for shows, and my dad and I helped her move a kiln with it. Her husband is a carpenter and his Sierra 2500HD Duramax is pretty much his daily driver and he houses all his tools in it and hauls lumber with it and pulls a trailer with his tractor and excavator occasionally.

 

[WilliamBos]

Do the 6.2L GM Max trailer trucks have a mechanical clutch fan? Do you need to run premium in them?