Originally Posted by mstan

Mr. Diesel Dan, I understand that this being the internet that you do not know me. I can respect that. But the fact still remains I have 4 friends wihich currently own them. Call "Extreme Offroad" in Lake Charles, La. and speak with the owner. Ask him what he thinks of his F-450 FX4. This man pulls a car hauler to all the 4x4 shows in the area. He builds custom trucks. Call Kyle investments in Westlake, La. He hauls a race car trailer. If these 2 references do not convience you then what can I say. I have been a true blue Ford guy for some time now. My first truck was a ford. My cars are ford. This is not been easy for me. Oh by the way I also have several friends who own 6.0 SD as well. I guess I am just lucky huh? LOL

Originally Posted by diesel_dan

(and Tsubakihara)

I'll just quote dagooaz's one post here. I've spent a lot of time on a couple of Brand C forums and a little time on Brand D, and a lot of time on FTE. I've found FTE in general, regardless of which sub-forum you go on, to be a very balanced and well moderated place. The Brand C and D forums were far less open to those with other makes coming in and talking smack. Stick around and you'll see what I mean.

Your post above is balanced and I for one have paid my hard earned money to find out how at least one of the other brands are (and that's Chevy). I've owned a number of Chevy trucks and a number of Fords and one Dodge. The Chevies all had problems related to underdesign, and even staying well within their capacities had failures of components that were just too light duty. My last Chevy I will ever own was an '05 Duramax 3500 srw 4x4. There are so many places that truck is weaker than my Ford of identical configuration that it's not worth re-listing them here for the umpteenth time. The straw that broke the camel's back for me on that truck was the complete lack of design review of the cooling system when they created the LLY Dmax. They are ALL designed (by lack of design that is) to overheat, every one of them. Go to any Chevy/GM forum and look up "LLY overheat" and read the 10s of thousands of posts/frustrations with that '04 thru '05 piece of you know what.

My one Dodge truck was all I needed to experience, as the thing fell apart around me, even during warranty. But I'd still consider one before I'd ever go back to a Chevy.

I read a lot on the 6.0 before I bought one, have a buch of friends with good ones. I mainly bought the Ford because of it's far superior capacity to either of the other two makes. My 11,400# gvwr in an SRW was equal to that of the other two's DRW models (when I bought last year). Period. Fact.

All of the diesels of the big 3 have more power than I or most folks need, so this "I win because I have 20 more HP", etc. is a worthless discussion point as far as I'm concerned.

I think the 6.4 will be a winner. You can go down and pop the hood on each of the competitor trucks and you can see the superior amount of cooling capacity the Ford has over the other two, and that's just for starters. They still are the most configurable line of trucks and have the highest capacities, by far, than Dodge or Chevy. Period. Fact.

If I hadn't bought the 6.0 last year and my choice was only of the new '07 emission compliant diesels of the big 3, I'd still take the Ford. Am I brand loyal?? well, I guess I'm just as much Brand burned, but still, the Ford is just a tougher platform. So until Chevy fires it's truck engineers and re-does the GMT-900 platform to put some capacity in it, and Dodge ups it's capacity and proves out it's new 6 speed auto and ads an integrated brake controller, then my only choice is to be brand loyal to Ford.

Hope you did as much homework when you bought yours... As long as it suits your needs and you are happy, that's all that matters, right?