Right now, I'm stopping at the 04's. 04.5 and up have the dreaded cat converter. Can't strait pipe it. (legally). I'm not giving up my strait pipe. When there's no radio station to tune in, there's always a song on. And now i can unroll the back window and hear it any time I want. Ahh.

 

03 6 speed is available with the HO. No HO in an 03 auto (47RE).

FYI

 

I just sold my 03. It was an HO 6sp dually.(Pics.in gal) I own an 05 and a 06 now. The 05 is the one in my sig and the 06 is basically the same truck as my 03 was. The 05 has 65,000 miles on it and it's been great. The plastic IC did pop but other then that and a cam sensor the 05 has been great. I only have 30,000 on the 06 and so far so good. If I needed to keep just 1 it would be the 06. I wouldn't buy another 03. The 03's are just plagued with problems. I think the biggest problem with the 03 are the injectors. I don't think there's a week that goes by and there's not a thread started here that goes something like "truck cranks for longer then it used to" and you can bet the author owns an 03. The seats in the 03's are about as bad as I have ever seen as well.
Good luck,
Topper

 

I have an '05 and an '07. Both have the 5.9l. I prefer the interior of the '05, other than that very little difference. The '05 does get about 1mpg better than the '07. Ed B

 

I like the 05. But I am kinda worried about the flap in the dash for the air intake(its still works) and those crazy-asp ball joints. But I guess all of us are stuck with that.

we'd be in pretty good shape if Chrysler fixed those two items for us
They might have in the newer 09's?