Thinking about buying Ram w/ Diesel engine
 

I have always been a Ford person. My truck is a 15 year old F250 gas truck. I am going to replace it with a used newer truck as we use it to tow the camper. I will not buy Ford diesel trucks. Depending on what service it needs, the cab may need to be lifted off the frame. With I6 Cummins, will there ever be a need to do that?

Also, the truck is not my daily driver and I don't put in more than 5k miles a year. Is that a concern with Cummins engine?

I am looking at 2012 with 150k miles. What should I look out for?

Thanks in advance for any feedbacks or suggestions.

If your only using the truck for 5,000 miles in one year you will never offset the extra cost of buying a diesel in any brand. Why not find a 2012 with the hemi in it?

That's actually a common misconception people have. The diesel's return-on-investment advantage isn't just fuel mileage, but also resale value. My previous 3 CTDs depreciated on average $1000/year. A gasser will depreciate much, much quicker. Example: I bought my 2003 new for $29k and sold it nine years later with 100k on it for $19k. At the time the Cummins was a $4k add over the Hemi, but when I sold it I could find Hemis in the same condition and mileage for $12k. Hence, I "gained' $3k on depreciation vs. the Hemi.
The older the trucks get the better they fare. Been helping my son look into a 2nd gen 4x4 CTD and they seem to bottom out about $12k for a decent one, maybe $9k for a beat-up super-high-mileage truck. Gasser 4x4 "2nd gens" in decent shape are going for $3k.

As for the OP, no I've never heard of a situation where removing the cab would be necessary on the Ram. For those looking for a long-term relationship with their truck that is certainly an important consideration. I would not buy a 2012 with 150k miles unless it the emissions had been deleted.

Thanks for the information. I did not think about the resale part.

This was acurate in 2003 or so but is not anything close in today's gas and diesel trucks. For one, like you just stated you wouldn't buy a 2012 without deletes. You don't have to delete anything on a gas truck, what's the related costs involved in that? Then their is the maintenance expense which is much higher on a new diesel versus the same year gas model. Just look at the initial cost of the Diesel engine and the transmission that goes along with it on any brand diesel truck in the last 10 years.

Your new truck in 2003 for $29,000 was likely a regular cab with not much for options and you selling it for $19,000 9 years later it must have been a cream puf. I bought my last new diesel in 2002 and it was in the $33,000 range but it was nicely equipped but it didn't have every option iether.

Like I said if your going to use it for 5000 miles per year anything diesel that's 15 years old or newer will never be cost effective. If anything using a new diesel pickup 5000 miles a year will end up with more maintenance dollars spent than the same thing that sees 15,000 miles per year.

Nope, my $29k 2003 was a Cummins-equipped Quad Cab 4x4 SLT auto (SO). It was about $7k under MSRP. I find that buying them in the fall you can wrangle that. It was no cream puff when I sold it, I'd say it had average wear and tear. Took about 3 weeks to sell on the dealer's lot as a consignment. Same dealer I bought my 2011 from, so they didn't charge me any fees that I recall. It was priced appropriately with others for sale in the area.

My 2011 SLT Crew 4x4 was a year-old when I got it. Paid $35k, could have got a new 2012 ST for $37k but thought the SLT would be easier to sell when the time came. Unfortunately it came sooner than I would've liked, as we decided to sell our house and build a new one. Needed to free up some finances and didn't want to beat up a new truck while playing contractor so I sold it for $33k a year and a half or so after purchasing it with 36k on the clock. If you remember diesel prices were really high at the time so I took a bit of a bath on that one.

I then bought a 2006 ST 4x4 quad with 155k on it for $18k for my "contractor truck". Sold it the day I advertised it for $16,500 two years and 35k miles later. Again, priced appropriately with others in the area.

Bought my 2015 the next day for $38k, which I feel was a screaming good deal. Again, I could have got a new ST for a few thousand more but decided the SLT would be easier to sell. Incredibly, trucks just like my 2011 were still going for the low-to-mid $30s but with 3X the miles. That's amazing! So yeah, I averaged $1k/year depreciation on my last three CTDs.
Sorry if your experience has been different.

As far as maintenance goes, except for the more expensive filters on the newer trucks (have yet to service my 2015 so I'm not up to speed there) I'm not in agreement that it costs any more to maintain a diesel than a gasser. That's an old myth that needs to die. Especially if you do your own maintenance like myself, and shop the sales/rebates for oil. Sure you use 2X the oil, but you change it half as often.

Oh and you can "stealth" delete a 2010-2012 for as little as $1k if you do it yourself (raceme on stock power settings and delete pipe, no gauges). My neighbor just did his (EFI live) for about that.

A deleted truck runs extremely clean. Running synthetic oil and using oil analysis you can extend the oil change intervals by...a lot. Saving money in the process.

That is exactly what I'm doing.