I have yet to find anything I had to do to a cummins that I couldn't find a write up online. I never worked on a diesel before I bought mine a year and a half ago. I've had no problem working on it at all. I worked at my families garage before I could drive and worked as a mechanic, never on diesels for about 10 years up to 10 plus years ago... now I do body/paint. I've done injectors, clutch, rebuilt the starter, oil/filter, fuel filter, resealed the vacuum pump/ps pump, exhaust, edge comp, brake lines, caliper, cleaned electrical connections/sensors etc... Not one thing was difficult other than pulling and reinstalling a heavy transmission by myself with just a floor jack.

What exactly do you find to be so difficult? And other than an injection pump, what is so much more expensive? I still can't figure out where some of you guys come up with this info! It's been far cheaper than a lot of vehicles I've owned before. With the inline 6, there's tons of room to work under the hood.

Speaking for myself, I didn't necesasrily say it was difficult, just that it's all new and more expensive.

We all pretty much know our way aroudn our old cars and know how/where to find stuff and modern car/truck gas engines don't need much attention (typically). But if you have diesel trouble, like you said, you have to spend time online to find out what to do, reading forums, weeding thru the chaff to get the wheat for good info to do a repair (hence my ‘new city’ analogy).

As a for instance, swapping a turbo seems pretty straightforward. But to do it on an F-series pickup, many folks consider it faster/easier to remove the cab to do it. Read about rusty 7.3 Powerstroke oilpans -- that’s the kinda thing I‘m referring (to the OP mentioned some F-series, so I mention bring this up).

And based on some thigns I’ve had to buy for mine, every part was noticeably more expensive for the diesel vs the gas in the same chassis. Aside from your injection pump and lift pump vs an electric EFI pump, look at injectors vs injectors, 2 batteries vs 1, turbo vs not, exhaust parts, vacuum pump, hydroboost, transmission, the list goes on. It may be justifiable for a fleet or HD user that runs a vehicle to 300k, but for the average 'civilian' user a diesel will be more expensive if you have to do a single unexpected repair while you own it. And you might have to buy some new/bigger tools if you want to do it yourself.

And some of the trucks the OP is looking at have a lot of miles on them, to the point where he *will probably* have to do some repairs.

My box truck is nice in that it gets around 15-17mpg, I drove it nearly 700 miles on errands before having to put fuel in it. But if someone would’ve given me a ‘yeah, but’ on diesels beforehand, like I’m trying to do, I would’ve jumped all over a well-preserved 79 Dodge cubevan I had seen online instead.

Myself, any time I attempt to work on a vehicle I've never worked on I will look for info online... gas or diesel. I had to put a clutch in my stratus rt and the trans and motor just wouldn't separate. Well, turns out there is a clip you got to pop out with a screwdriver to separate it first. Had I did some research first, it would have been easy. Anyways, newer cars are more difficult to work on than a diesel in my opinion. Also it's hard to beat the under hood space compared to newer cars and gas trucks.

I bought a 4" turbo back exhaust for my truck, 289 shipped to my door. Injectors can be bought for one like mine for around 400. I'm sure 8 injectors for a hemi would cost just as much or more. Used stock turbos are plentiful and cheap also.

My point is, I've seen comments like this before I owned a diesel and bought into it. Now I can speak from the other side and I don't agree with it. If you can work on a gas engine, there is
no reason you can't work on a diesel. Sure there are some additional expenses, but the extra power more than makes up for that. Power, resell, fuel economy, etc... and for me the list goes on and on.

When making the suggestion of a gas truck over a Diesel, I was NOT knocking diesels. Diesel trucks are superior to gasoline powered trucks in nearly every performance catagory. Many people know this and prefer Diesel powered trucks. Therefore purchase prices are almost always higher for Diesel trucks. Diesel owners pay more for their trucks and get better trucks.

In trying to read between the lines of dhkennedy's posts, it seems like a low purchase price is important to him. He also mentioned he will not be doing any towing with the truck. Putting these two points together, I thought a lighter duty gas powered truck MAY be a better option for him in his current situation.

As far as the overall cost of ownership, I've been led to believe that there is NOT a huge difference between an economical 1/2 ton gasoline truck and a heavier duty 3/4 or 1 ton diesel truck. Twenty years ago a diesel was considerably cheaper to run. Today, the costs are much closer. I started a discussion on this point a while back. Here is the tread on the subject:

https://board.moparts.org/ubbthreads/showflat.php?Board=Warlock&Number=7414112

Making a comparision between a 1/2 ton gas truck and a 1 ton diesel is not a completely fair comparision. When a person chooses a 1/2 ton gas truck, they are giving up a significant amount of performance. If the extra performace of the Diesel is needed or wanted, then spend the extra coin and buy the Diesel!!

I had a long chat with a friend that owns a local fleet of tow trucks. Many years ago he removed the worn gas engines in his trucks and replaced them with diesels, now he is changing his fleet over to gas engines, because the cost of operation for local use has become higher for diesel equipment. That includes the fuel, the regular service and repairs. The equation has changed for him.

The way I see it is, after the initial purchase which would be higher for a diesel, they really don't cost more than a gasser. Diesel fuel here is 4.21, gas is 3.95. I'm getting at least 25% more fuel economy with my diesel.

But to me, that's not even what it's about. I can tow effortlessly, I spent about 1k in performance parts and doubled the power and torque if not more... and at the same time improved the mpg's. I have a 4x4 truck, that's like driving a muscle car. If you just want to look at costs, then a lot of us here should do the same at out old mopars... they cost money! I say if your considering buying a diesel, do it, you won't regret it. My only regret is waiting so long to get one.

Personally, I'm a bit leary of high mileage diesel trucks like the ones mentioned by the OP. These is a risk involved with buying a high mileage truck. I have a friend who bought a used Ford diesel pick-up. If I recall correctly, it had around 250,000 miles on it. It was in excellent condition. Newer paint, great interior, etc. I think he paid $8,000 to $10,000 for it. He drove it for a little over a year. Then the powerstroke died. I believe he told me the replacement engine cost about $7,000 or $8,000. He has spent $15,000 - $20,000 on a truck that has 300,000+ miles on it. I suspect that for the price he has invested in that truck, he could have bought a newer truck with lower miles and had a better truck that is worth more.

They guy LOVES his Ford and has every intention of driving it another 250,000 miles. I hope that plan works out for him. If his circumstances change and he has to sell his truck, he will probably take a significant loss on it.

Well to compare an engine blowing. A friend of mine has a 2011 cummins that threw a rod through the block. It had about 50k, however it was heavily modified, 600 plus hp. It cost about 5k for a good used short block, gaskets, head redone, etc... Your looking at a less available engine compared to the earlier 5.9s and it still wasn't that expensive. I've had 5k into short blocks for cars I rarely drove. I've seen 5.9s for 1500-2500, what's a good hemi engine cost for example? From what I've seen, same range.

I realize what your saying and I wouldn't consider a ford or recommend one either. The cummins engine in reality is better than the trucks they go into. So I'd be more considered about the truck itself than the engine having higher miles.

GIVE ME CUMMINS OR GIVE ME A DAMN GOOD PAIR OF SHOES!!!

Sorry but I cannot help myself, I absolutely love to see stuff like this........ Diesel non-believers and high mileage diesel non-believers.....check out this truck for sale......and this is not uncommon.......

http://indianapolis.craigslist.org/cto/3618875214.html

EDIT - Eticket beat me to it...

842,000 miles on a 9 year old truck (let's say they it was on the street for 9.5 years) is around 88,000 mi / year.

that's ~240 mi/day if you do it every day of the year -- take any days off and it's even more mi/day.

I think it's a reasonable asumption that most of those miles, if not all, came from some commercial venture with lots of highway use. Probably not the norm.

I knew of a guy that was putting 100k mi/year delivering new 5th-wheel trailers with his dually.

Impossible. The truck would be too worn out to go that many miles!

That is not impossible at all. The truck is just being used in the best possible way. Lots of highway miles means little stress on the drive train and the body. As an example, when I sold my 2002 CTD with 125,000 miles the body was loose and getting looser. I had to make sure that I shut down the engine with the doors shut because if I did not the doors would shake up and down and where the front doors met the Quad Cab rear doors they rubbed at the top and the drivers door squealed when I shut it. I owned the truck for 6 years and drove it 10 miles each way to work and made some short (under 5 miles) runs during the day. I put less than 10,000 miles a year on the truck. Exactly the wrong way to treat a diesel, they will live the longest if they are run for long periods at moderate engine speeds. Also note that the truck in the ad has no engine mods. An engine has only so much power and you can take it out in big chunks over a short run or small chunks over a long time.

Your in California.. by god. There are plenty of trucks out there. I bought my '05 3500 Cummins off ebay in 2007 for 18K and it had 78,000(?) miles. Sold new in LA but I bought it out of Arlington Texas. I couldn't find anything in Ohio cheaper unless it was a 1998 model with 250,000+miles.

I would look around on ebay

http://motors.shop.ebay.com/i.html?_nkw=...4506.m270.l1313