What’s the best full size truck?

General Discussion
21

I’m in Mississippi. Rust isn’t really an issue.

I believe the guy could’ve sold the Toyota if he’d spruced it up a bit. I didn’t think it had cupholders until I cleaned it. They were level full of cigar ashes and change and sort of blended in with the rest of the interior. And you know that greasy, oily, caked on dirt that you see on cloth door panels or armrests on dirty work trucks? The entire seat looked like that lol. My wife was afraid she’d catch something riding in it until I cleaned it.

I got rear ended at a stoplight in it and began to worry about safety since my two kids rode with me from time to time. So I traded it for an extended cab 1995 z71. It was pretty ugly too. It was white, and was one of the ones that had issues with paint flaking off and leaving gray spots. It sort of looked like a big, loud Dalmatian with oversized mud tires. I put around $600 into the z71. I had put around $300 into the Tacoma, plus $300 when I bought it. So all in, I had around $1200 invested. I sold the z71 for $2900. Should’ve kept it, I guess. But the profit was too tempting at the time. Sadly that $1700 isn’t a lot towards a newer one.

But yes, I guess I’m still leaning towards Ford in the newer 1/2 tons. I’ve sort of started looking around for a 2013-2014, thinking the last of the older body styles might be a good bit cheaper. Has been hard to find a locally owned one with low (less than 50k) miles.

22

We have a lot of white GM vehicles in our fleet with the same problem

Only they’re a LOT newer than your truck

23

I wonder why it seems like that happens more to the white ones?

24

They quit making the really good pickup trucks some years back. The really great trucks were the Diamond-T and the International Harvester. The Diamond-T pickups disappeared about 1952. The International pickups lasted into the 1970s.

25

I would consider that to be subjective, not objective

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26

Haha, yes, I always liked the IH trucks, the later models. I liked the Scouts too. Mainly I liked the way they looked. Those later model IH trucks were just boxes in design. Looked like something I could build out of Lego’s, but sometimes less is more.

Still, I doubt I’d want one as a commuter. And they generally didn’t last for as many miles as a newer truck is expected too. In the 70’s, 100k miles was a lot ons car. Now we (or at least I) expect to get 200k miles before something major happens. If I’m honest, I doubt many IH trucks hit 200k. Could be wrong. I think fuel injection helped engine longevity quite a bit.

27

@db4690 and @Scrapyard_John
Take everything Triedaq says with a grain of salt. He still tries to live in the past. He thinks a late model vehicle is any vehicle made after WW II.
He leaves the computer on when he isn’t using it just as he leaves lights on all through the house, so that gives me the opportunity to inform those of you on this board that he is a real geezer.
Mrs. Triedaq

6 Likes
28

Haha, no problem! I live in the past too, but a more recent past. I think a lot of the vehicles made in the late 90’s are in a lot of ways better than the ones made today.

29

A friend of ours has had a Tundra for a couple years now and really loves it, He needed something to carry the camper and for towing, upgrading from a Tacoma. I don’t think he really even looked at the ford or chevy’s. He’s bought a couple new Toyota’s over the last few years while having one of his other Toyota’s serviced (currently has the Tundra & 2 Prius’s)

30

I think the Tundra would be my first choice if money wasn’t an issue. All 1/2 ton trucks are too expensive, but from past experience, domestics will discount $10-$12k. Toyota will discount $1-$2k.

31

@Scrapyard_John. I remember seeing an advertisement for a brand new IH pickup for under $1400 back in 1954. One option that was available was the Borg Warner overdrive. This would have made it a pretty good commuting vehicle for that time period.
Much as I hate to admit it, today’s pickups are much more versatile than the pickups of the 1950s. At highway speeds of 55-65 mph, things were quite noisy in the cab.
My brother has a 1999 Ford F-150 with the automatic transmission, air conditioning, split front seats and it rides as well as many passenger cars and is very quiet at highway speeds.
When I get to the point where I don’t need a minivan, I’ll probably go to a pickup truck. I don’t like the driving position in most cars. I prefer to sit up and I like the visibility in a pickup truck as compared to a car.

32

You can think that but I don’t agree at all .

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33

I used to drive an IH for deliveries to the post office, it was functional, and fun, but like a neanderthal compared to a cro magnon, the Apache truck was older but a fine ride in comparison

I wrecked my Ranchero on the coastal highway in CA south of Monterrey, some DR letting his kid without a license drive, round a downhill turn, dew on the road, kid freaked as he thought the car coming up the hill was too close to his lane and came to a dead stop, I slammed on the brakes realizing too late he was stopped dead in the highway, hit him just hard enough to bend the point of the bumper in and cause the radiator to get shredded by the fan.
My San Fran girlfriend and I had been camping at Big Sur, met a lady who warned us about the poison oak, small little plants, she had spent a week in the hospital and had some nasty scars.We rode in the Ranchero while being towed to Monterrey, now I ended up having to pee so bad peed in a pop bottle, no way to contact the tow truck driver.
So I sold the ranchero to a mechanic and got a bus pass with an unlimited number of stops and time from point a to poing b, basically San Fran to Chicago.
I was backpacking again, Hiked up into many parks, basically a hammock and a sleeping bag, but was a photography major at my first stab at a college degree. Hope I am not boring you but may write a book someday, and this is good fodder for the mill.
So I stop in Butte Montana, get off the bus and start wandering, decided to stop in an antique store, and there were 8x10 glass plate negatives, I was enthralled!
So I bought a carryall and 50 glass plate negatives, late 1800s stuff, ribbon cutting for the Montana Special, wrestler, dead people in coffin, sheep farmer, ladies in period dress etc.
So I get to talking with the owner and he had one of the old Wurlizer Jukeboxes with the exterior Rainbow of lights that was not working, and had an offer of $750 from a guy in CA if he could get it working. I said I can fix it, and I did, meanwhile he gave me a free apartment above the shop to live in, wifes home cooked meals, paid by the hour and got to drive the old Apache truck for his pickups and deliveries.

Not that I am unhappy now, but I think in retrospect I could have stayed on there, eventually bought the store and lived in one of my many potential dream lifes. And yes I still have the glass plate negatives transported cross country by me on a bus.

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34

My dad has a 1950 model Chevy truck. I fiddled around with trying to mechanically restore it (brakes, fluid changes, etc., nothing extensive) when I was in high school. I drove it as a daily driver for a while in high school. I don’t think I’d want to use it as a daily driver now, though!

35

Well here’s my reasoning behind that statement. In the late 90’s, early 00’s, new trucks had fuel injection, ABS, airbags, power everything, decent power, overdrive trans, etc. Most were pretty much reliable to over 150k miles. You sort of had everything you needed.

Now when shopping for a new truck, you get the same thing you did back then, plus more power and better mileage with either VVT, smaller displacement and turbo’s, or cylinders that shut down (displacement on demand), autostop tech (on some), lighter body panels (to save weight), etc. Plus you get quite a bit of interior tech gadgetry that I could live with, or without. I question whether all of these advancements will fare well at higher mileage in several years. I’m having a hard time imagining a twin turbo, aluminum body panel truck, with start/stop tech and a backup camera in 30 years still being able to be used as a 200k mile farm or hunting truck. We will see, if we’re all still around.

36

Nobody is preventing you from buying a bare bones model with vinyl seats, stamped steel rims, manual locks and windows, or perhaps a mid-grade model with cloth seats, power windows and locks, but no premium sounds, no navigation, no fancy alloy rims, etc

37

True, and I probably will. I’ve test driven XL model Ford’s and found they had enough tech for me. But it will still have some sort of fuel saving gadgetry to overcomplicate things (IMO), such as autostop, displacement on demand, VCT, or a smaller displacement engine with turbos. Plus ultra thin body panels and bumpers to save weight.

I’m not saying new trucks are “bad”. But I do wonder if they’re not sacrificing some long term reliability in order to squeeze out a bit more fuel mileage. I do not want a 200k mike truck years from now with “autostop technology”, for example. Hell, I don’t want one now. I’m a 43 yr old fogey, I guess. But it is what it is.

38

Bingo , we have found the problem.

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39

Helpful post, lots of info there, Volvo. Great discussion.

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40

As far as IH, I had a Scout, not that great. I think it was a 71 with a 352. The engine did not live up to it’s displacement. It functions okay but I traded it for a CJ 5 that I liked much better. I lived in the Wasatch Mountains at the time and spent much of it off-road.