Hi....
Being a true Ford man and having owned quite a few including my present baby, but working as a tech at a Chevrolet dealership leaves me a lot of good information and insight into this area.

First, I must say that we haven't seen ANY Duramax hard failures due to normal usage. I say normal because we've had quite a few melt (pistons) down due to those super-high horsepower chips that people think they need and don't upgrade exhaust or intake systems. Granted, they do have injector problems, but doesn't that remind you of our lovely 6.0L's, too? Heck, the 7.3s have injector problems.

Second, the only real problems we have seen are A LOT of people putting gasoline in the tank.....HA HA HA

Third, the "Allison" sucks. It's not a good transmission at all and the ECM for it is a real piece of junk that doesn't like to communicate with the PCM. They have torque converter input seal failures left and right and aren't made for 550 ft.lbs...they burn up the C2 clutch packs. The six speed manual isn't any better. It's a loud, clunky, sloppy mess.

GM DID NOT do it's homework when trying to mate the D-max computer to the Allison control module. GM has a hard enough time getting it's own control modules (up to 9 of them in one truck, 14 in others such as the Trailblazer) to talk to eachother. They were in too much of a hurry to get their new diesel out on the market in the beginning.

Personally, the D-max runs pretty good for a "diesel for someone who's never owned a diesel before" pickup. Friendly for the "old lady" to drive to pick up groceries and runs just like a gas engine. The Chevrolet is NOT a heavy-duty rig. IFS is not acceptable in this field of pickups.....heck, unitized hub bearings (as they ALL have now) are junk. The only REAL diesel these days is the 89-93 Cummins (actual front spindles and tapered roller bearings). Built like a diesel with real diesel connecting rods, wet sleeves, and it doesn't have a torque curve like a small block v8. I say that because the D-max needs to run at 2800-3300 RPM to do ANYTHING. I notice that with my Powerstroke every time I drive it..... so it's getting a 12V cummins one of these days.

I owned a 94 Cummins for about a year and loved everything about it, except that it was a Dodge (regular cab). What a crappy pickup. Never had a problem with the drivetrain and it would out-pull my powerstoke anytime, anywhere. I had 3.55s in the Dodge with 35s and it would start out in second gear at an idle just by letting out the clutch. The powerstroke with it's 4.10s won't even start out in first at an idle with the 265/75's without stalling. The only reason I traded the Dodge for the Ford was because Dodge doesn't make a true 4 door pickup.....even the brand new ones are no more than a quad cab with doors that open normally.

Anyways that's my 25 cents....
Cody

 

9,000 is a lot of difference when the trucks are more than 25,000 dollars each. Not to mention, you take that total and multiply that by 29 years, too. That's quite a difference, especially considering that according to the loyalty ratings, people that already have Fords generally buy another one, and there's a better chance that if they drive any other brand that they won't buy another one. To be the leader for more than 28 years in a row is what I call domination. You're right, though, you can look at it any way you want.

 

Sales increasing leaps and bounds? Where? Do you call the 2.9% that Chevy's sales have increased from last year leaps and bounds? Compared to Ford's increase of 10.6%, that's failry puny. GMC had a great jump of 9.0%, but that's looking from the perspective of only selling maybe 175,000 trucks per year, so you'd have to combine the sales and compare to last year's combined sales to get an accurate percentage of their increase. At the current increase rate, it would take like 96 years for Chevy/GMC to finally outsell Ford in trucks. Something major would have to happen for Ford to lose that crown. It hasn't yet, the Duramax has been out long enough to get the market share that they are going to have.

 

I met a guy at the gas station my second time filling up my truck. He was in a new chevy. He askes me " how much did you have to pay the dealer to lift your truck...ha...ha" I replyed back to him that mine is stock height. After a few minutes of him being silent and agonizing over something he says"that sucks" when asked what sucked, he said " I paid $1400 to get my truck lifted and its the same height as yours" I just told him it could have been worse, he could have bought a hemi.....

 

Right, and the price of lifting an IFS costs how much more than lifting an SFA? The Ford is clearly the better choice there, too, buddy. No cv joints to worry about going out, nothing like that.

 

Yeh lifting these chevies is a very expensive thing.I once seen one lifted very high in a truck magazine and man the hardware under the truck to do that it didnt look good at all. IFS has no place in a HD truck IMO. The solid front will take more abuse than a IFS any day of the week. One reason why the superduty is the most popular truck in the country. And the best lookin truck by far. Chevy ditch that front end. Ive just seen a advertisement for chevy trucks they show the side of the truck instead of the front. On the new 150 they show the front of the truck. I sure can see the reasoning here. Oh I can here Hammy and Mr Goodwrench coming.Oooops watch out.

 

It's REALLY bad when a truck manufacturer needs stickers on the rear quarter panel to let you know whether its actually got a transfer case in it because there is no height difference between their 2wd and 4wd pickups...sad.


Cody

 

OUCH that will leave a mark.......

 

I wondering who he's talking about? Shhh I wont say anything.

 

hey D-MAX here ya go

http://www.thedieselpage.com/duramax/durafaq.htm

even though i dont like chevy the facts are that it was a rumor about the heads, and aluminium alloy is a pretty strong material when properly maintained.

 

I recently bought a Sport Trac, and the salesman hooked me up with a CD that has some sales training information on it. On this CD, they did a load pull competition, and a bumper to bumper pull competition with the top line trucks from Toyota, Ford, Chevy, and Dodge. In all tests, conducted fair and square, the Ford won hands down. The Dodge Hemi is the only thing that came close, and it had more power and torque than the Ford, but still lost. As total packages go, I will always believe that you can't go wrong with a Ford. I have 6 in my yard, 1 car & 5 trucks, ranging from 1984 to 2004, and they're all great vehicles.......

 

There is no way that that tape isnt bias toward Ford, in comparison tests in magazines the Dodge always wins(not including the titan).

 

That's possible, but you'd have to see it.....

 

To be honest I never see Dodge win anything, other than with the Dodge Viper

 

It wasn't a tape, it was a CD, shows how much you was paying attention.