HD Truck Showdown: Chevy vs. Ford vs. Dodge

[Variance]

HD Truck Showdown: Chevy vs. Ford vs. Dodge

In a big three-way duel, Edmunds pits the toughest pickups of the Big 3 against each other to determine the king of the heavy duty truck hill. Get your Calvin pissing on _______ stickers ready.

Read "2006 Heavy-Duty-Truck Comparison Test" @ Edmunds

[loki]

wonder if those power and mpg will change when GM is supposed to give it HCCI...

this comparo wasn't to surprising, only surprised that dodge uses a 6cyl amoung the few others. YAY chevy!

[Slideways]

The Chevy also won in the driving/towing shootout in Truckin' magazine. Any one of these three can do amazing things with aftermarket tuners and a few bolt-ons though.

[Cortazzo]

For light duty I would go ford, for HD either chevy or dodge because the powerstroke is just too damned trouble prone. My uncle uses Ford trucks for his contracting business and he says they are built to withstand amazing amounts of punishment. I remember when the new Ram came out, I asked him if he liked it and he said, "Have you seen how thin a dodge frame is?! I don't think so!"

[Mr Plow 2500HD]

Ive had an 06 gmc 2500hd with the 6.0. Amazing truck rides better than the others regaurdless of conditions tough but car like and very heavy duty, more so than expected, much better than my 94 2500 was. Ive driven the fords and dodges and there good home depot trucks but thats it, on jobs you mostly see current gmc/chevy hd's. Biggest problem so far...cant find seat covers for the 40/60 bench seat

[usa1]

These are great for the 1% of truck buyers that that needs them. Too bad 10% of the truck buyers THINK they need these noisy and smelling monsters.

"Gotta have all that torque for the one day a year I tow by jet skis to the lake. Yup!"

In any event, good job GM.

Mark

[deftonesfan867]

These are great for the 1% of truck buyers that that needs them.  Too bad 10% of the truck buyers THINK they need these noisy and smelling monsters.

"Gotta have all that torque for the one day a year I tow by jet skis to the lake.  Yup!"

In any event, good job GM.

Mark

Ummmmm, noisy and smelly??? All three of em are smokeless and as quiet as you can get w/ diesels.

[Justin Bimmer]

I drive a dodge pulling a 14,000 lb trailer and I WISH SO MUCH that i had the duramax with the B600 allison...... 4 gears suck going up the hill and going down the hill..... give me an ancient truck that can pull any day of the week. Plus the Chevy looks better than the rest!

[regfootball]

For light duty I would go ford, for HD either chevy or dodge because the powerstroke is just too damned trouble prone.  My uncle uses Ford trucks for his contracting business and he says they are built to withstand amazing amounts of punishment.  I remember when the new Ram came out, I asked him if he liked it and he said, "Have you seen how thin a dodge frame is?!  I don't think so!"

no, no, he would be happier with a Ridgeline.......

[usa1]

Ummmmm, noisy and smelly??? All three of em are smokeless and as quiet as you can get w/ diesels.

Which is still much noisier and smellier than any gas engine.

Mark

[Mr Plow 2500HD]

These are great for the 1% of truck buyers that that needs them.  Too bad 10% of the truck buyers THINK they need these noisy and smelling monsters.

"Gotta have all that torque for the one day a year I tow by jet skis to the lake.  Yup!"

In any event, good job GM.

Mark

Newer model HD trucks are not noisey and smelly. What rock have you been hiding under? Maybe them older ford powerstokes if you want to bitch about noisey but this topic is about current trucks

[Nick]

Man...I want to see what they can do with reporgramming and some bolt-ons...I hear chips alone unleash a couple hundred torque and a lot of hp as well out of those diesel engines...

[sciguy_0504]

These are great for the 1% of truck buyers that that needs them.  Too bad 10% of the truck buyers THINK they need these noisy and smelling monsters.

"Gotta have all that torque for the one day a year I tow by jet skis to the lake.  Yup!"

In any event, good job GM.

Mark

You forgot to mention a general feeling of inadequacy that overcomes certain buyers before they buy such a vehicle.

Of the few of these I see on the road, noisy, smelly and slow are adjectives that come to mind, new or not. Most of them do not have anything attached to the back end, either, meaning they are being used as a daily driver most of the time.

Edit: spelling.

Edited June 10, 2006 by sciguy_0504

[joemac]

You forgot to mention a general feeling of inadequacy that overcomes certain buyers before they buy such a vehicle.

Of the few of these I see on the road, noisy, smelly and slow are adjectives that come to mind, new or not.  Most of them do not have anything attached to the back end, either, meaning they are being used as a daily driver most of the time.

Edit: spelling.

Same can be said for about many vehicles purchased. Basically the stereo-typing is "my vehicle is perfect for me, but everyone else’s choice makes no sense for them." Us driving F-bodies, Vettes, GTO's and many other vehicles often buy in "excess" it's in the American jean. We have the freedom to do so. :unitedstates"

Today's trucks have such versatility they can play many rolls other vehicles can not. They can do it all, take a single person to work, take the family out to dinner, to the grocery store, go to the home improvement store, out and back to the hunting lease, pickup a load of firewood, haul the travel trailer with the family on vacation, tow the car to and from the track. All this in one vehicle and not multiples. Decades previous it would take multiple vehicles to accomplish this. The amount of versatility in today’s trucks far exceeds the capabilities of previous offerings. Thus why they are so popular, get all of capabilities and versatility in one package.

Current day, sure we could do just about the same thing with less. Though from personal experience after owning a half ton and now a diesel HD truck, there is a huge amount of difference secure and stable feed back a HD truck gives you when under like loads. Compound the responsibility of that having a family inside, many people would opt for the vehicle that exceeds the capabilities, over what's just enough to get by.

After seeing first hand how easy it is to have an incident while loading down a 1500 (too much tongue weight, no enough tongue weight, many choose to error with more truck than needed. Your margin of error with regards to load greatly diminishes with the use of an HD truck.

[76ChevyTrucker]

I'm glad to see that the Chevy HD trucks are able to hold up, although they are the oldest of the trucks in the competition, I'm a Chevy/GMC truck guy without any doubt and I don't see the need of a mega-crew cab truck, although a regular crew cab duallie, with an 8-ft bed, 5th wheel hitch Duramax and an Allison does sound like the best idea for me.