Originally Posted By: hattaresguy
Originally Posted By: jeepman3071
Originally Posted By: ls1mike
Man this thread went south fast.
Just depends on what you want to do.
If you are going to tow often the larger the vehicle the better (depending on load.) Longer wheel base equals less sway and more stability. Towing is not all about power. It is about the complete package.
I tow an 8000lbs loaded travel trailer with a 3/4 ton 6.0 gas Chevy. It does fine. Lots of gas trucks at the campgrounds.
Just decide what you ultimate goal is. Rust is Rust, not sure where you are at but find the one with the least rust. I am luck where I am at as we don't get rust.
+1 what do you use the truck for?
I love how towing apparently means you need a huge V8 and someone even recommended a diesel.
Maybe that is why I see lots of huge diesel pickups towing tiny single axle trailers.
My best friend put 200k on his Ranger before selling it. It was an extremely reliable truck. The only thing that broke on it was the rear plastic tailgate handle, which we replaced with a metal one. His was a V6, but it towed everything we asked it to, including lots of topsoil, mulch, lawnmowers, wood, etc.
Tundras are a nice truck, but if you don't tow a lot, I doubt you need a huge V8 full-size truck. The beds on a full-sized crew cab truck are not even that much bigger than a Ranger when it comes down to it. Most crew cab trucks come with a 6 foot bed. Unless you tow a large trailer or buy an 8ft bed full-sized truck, a new larger truck doesn't have too many advantages.
If you do need a full-size for towing, and only plan to use it every so often, I suggest getting an older truck. My Grandpa only needs a truck for dump runs, plowing his driveway, and the occasional home depot run. He has a 1994 Ford F-250 that he has when he needs it, and uses his Honda Fit for daily driving. The Ford is paid off, cheap to insure, easy to fix, and the bad gas mileage isn't a big deal since its not used every day.
Trucks are simply tools that must be sized right for a job. I wouldn't use my little 9v impact gun to drive in 3in deck screws all day long, I'd use a 20v Dewalt. Will the little impact gun do a few screws once in awhile? Sure.
Same with trucks. However running silly overloaded is just foolish. The guys that say oh my little truck is amazing I tow all this weight and load the heck out of it, to frankly an illegal OTR level are fools. If they have any assets at all they want to protect they are putting them in danger. If you get into an accident with a severally overloaded truck than you have a very high chance of getting sued because of it.
Also why white knuckle it? Larger vehicles have larger brakes and more mass, their is more to working a truck than just the truck being able to do the job. I can hook my 10k pound boat and trailer to a Ranger and have it yank it around the equipment yard pretty good. But OTR? Come on. Will it move it a bit around town? Probably. Will the trailer yank the truck around like a toy down a ramp or smoke the brakes into oblivion on any kind of incline? Sure, and if I hit someone I'm getting sued. Which is why I tow it with a 1 ton dually Dodge.
Its all about sizing the vehicle properly for the job, and when in doubt I think its a good rule to go a bit on the heavy side. Because no one ever has the problem of having to much truck.
Its not about the motor really, its about having a vehicle built and designed for what you are doing with it. Underneath a 3/4 ton truck has a lot more steel than a 1/4 or 1/2 ton truck. Everything is more beefy and designed to handle a lot more weight.
Nobody here was talking about hooking 10K lbs. to a Ranger. We don't even know what the OP wants to tow yet.
I may have gone over my GVWR a couple times, but hardly ever white knuckled it or actually stressed the brakes or anything else. Towing 4K lbs. with a small truck isn't severe overloading by any stretch of the imagination. While my truck does have slightly smaller brakes than the same year 2WD F-150, when you look at brake size in relation to curb weight, my truck has proportionally larger brakes for its weight. It wasn't until the mid 2000s that 1/2 tons got a significant capacity advantage over smaller trucks, and with that came $50K price tags, so what's the point? Buy a 3/4 ton at that price. Like I said, when I really need to haul something, I skip the 1/2 tons and borrow a Super Duty.
Why is it that everyone here seems to be in favor of towing trailers with FWD cars that aren't supposed to be towing anything (numerous threads about this), or are in favor of buying a dually diesel to yank around a 5x8 utility trailer, but when anyone mentions doing anything with a small truck it's "OMFG YOU CAN'T DO THAT!!!" (usually from someone who has never owned and possibly never driven a small truck, let alone actually looked up the capacities)?
