When did pickups become medium duty trucks?

Our company owner just bought a '17 F250, 4dr shortbed Platinum edition. That thing is gorgeous, huge, and as quiet as my stock-exhaust Mustang. He has it in the shop right now to black out all the brightwork, upsize the tires, and add the arrays of LED lights.

Then it's going to Texas to have a 3rd set of doors added.

He's replacing a 7.3L Excursion that makes somewhere near 4 digits of HP and lord knows how much torque. He initially talked to a shop about their program to convert new F250s int Excursions, but they can't do it with the new aluminum trucks, so he's adding the third row. They'll cut the frame and add in 2 FEET.

He keeps saying that it will only be as long as a 4dr long bed, but I'm not sure the math works. It's gonna be YUGE!

Cotton wrote:

Ranger50 wrote: And just remember just because you can pull it with that truck, the govt says otherwise, with anything greater than 26k....

Isn't the CDL requirement for over 26k due the need for an air brake endorsement? I know when I was looking to cruise around in the halo truck, which is 30k lbs I looked into this. Since I wasn't commercial, and it has an air over hydraulic brake system as opposed to just air, I was not going to be required to have a CDL, so I was going to be able to go over 26k with no CDL.

I had a class A CDL without an air endorsement. Been weighed several times over 32,000 lbs. All perfectly legal because the truck was rated for the load and had the correct tags, but had hydraulic brakes. Which made it about the most useless CDL ever because I couldn't legally drive anything with air brakes.

Ranger50 wrote: In reply to rslifkin: That's a gray area. You're proven guilty on the roads until innocent. If you are doing a favor for a friend and they are paying you for fuel and a 12pk, you're commercial now. That's a stretch but entirely plausible. In reply to Cotton: DOT cops don't care. They are stopping anyone and everyone that even remotely stinks of possibly being overweight and not placarded.

I'm not sure what you're getting at. Getting pulled over would be an inconvenience, but still wouldn't make me running 30k lbs illegal under the scenario I mentioned....personal use, no air brakes, and this is TN where I was looking into it because I have no desire to drive the Halo truck far enough to cross a state line.

gearheadE30 wrote: The trucks don't feel all that quick empty, but a big trailer sure doesn't seem to make them much slower.

The difference between an engine that accelerates well and one that doesn't.

I love the feeling of a big engine digging into a load. The truck just gets that grumble deep in its chest and gets to work.

My truck is not quick empty, mostly because it's a manual so I'd spend all my time chasing gears. I also don't like paying the fuel bills to get four tons up to speed, so I'm the guy you don't want to be stuck behind at a light

Keith Tanner wrote: I love the feeling of a big engine digging into a load. The truck just gets that grumble deep in its chest and gets to work.

I hadn't really processed that thought before but there was a sort of self-satisfied warmth to hearing the diesel load up, take a set and puuuulll something very heavy from a dead stop.

Sort of like driving a loaded straight truck with a two speed rear where your first two or three shifts all happen under 10mph just to get the thing moving. Although this gets seriously old - I did have that as a job for a while and it made driving home in a 1st gen sentra with a big hole in the floor seem satisfying.

In reply to Nick (Bo) Comstock: Why not get the air brake endorsement? It's just another written test that took me less than an hour to study for?

In reply to Keith Tanner: You may be costing yourself some money. I've checked and I found it's less expensive to accelerate relatively briskly in order to get to top gear sooner. The sooner you're in Top gear the slower the engine turns and that's where it gets it's best fuel mileage.. Imagine you stayed in first gear all the way home but just went slowly.. I'm pretty sure you'd find getting into high gear sooner results in better fuel mileage..

I don't know exactly where the cross-over is between brisk acceleration and stop and go traffic dictates a slower pace to return better fuel mileage but the bus I drive daily get's 7.8 MPG average in my 120 mile day. That's 18,000 pounds, 12 feet high and 8&1/2 feet wide, drive a few blocks and step on the brakes sort of driving.. I pick up between 55 and 77 kids per load so not only can I be as much as 20 minutes late per segment with less than full throttle acceleration, my fuel mileage drops down to 6.5 or less.

In reply to patgizz: Why not get a CDL? The tests aren't hard or expensive. The only requirement is an annual physical. Heck you should have one of those anyway, my insurance covers an annual wellness physical free and I simply bring the form along and ask the doctor to sign it..

Huckleberry wrote: I couldn't get a Colorado diesel out the door for under $50k and I couldn't get a reasonably equipped F-150 for under $45k. A Silverado 2500HD Duramax with a well appointed interior is north of $70k and can be optioned to $85k. I can buy a Peterbuilt with a sleeper cab for mid-30s with a million miles left in it... Cowboy Caddy anyone? It is rumored to tow well.

True, but it would be lucky to get 1/2 the MPG as these pickups. Not a big deal if you're not towing a lot of miles though.

In reply to frenchyd:

Diesel vs gas makes a difference in how much throttle you should give when accelerating for best mpg. With a gas engine, you want to get some load on it and get the throttle open a good bit, but you don't want to spend any more time in fuel enrichment than necessary (so accelerating too fast or too slow will hurt you).

With a diesel, you don't have the fuel enrichment penalty, so laying into it harder will often come out ahead for fuel burn.

However, on higher revving small diesels as well as gassers, revving it too high on acceleration also incurs an efficiency penalty (pumping losses, etc. increase with rpm). So with an auto trans, that might make less than WOT better for a higher revving smaller diesel. And for a gas engine, you need to balance rpm with not getting into fuel enrichment much (high rpm will often start enriching and too much load at low rpm will also).

To be clear, I'm not driving at a glacial pace. My truck is a stick and ripping hard through 2nd and 3rd makes for a very un-smooth driving experience. Watching the real-time fuel economy readout shows that my moderate acceleration seems to be a bit preferable to matting it and having the truck lurch around. Things are different when I've got a load strapped to the back, of course.

In reply to Keith Tanner:

You certainly don't want to go too hard with a loaded diesel and a manual. I have snapped the flange on more than one axle shaft beating on F-350 and 450s. Depending on where they break it's not always easy fishing the remaining shaft out of the axle tube especially if you snap it at the splines in the diff.

TunaDad pulled the race car (maybe 3000 lb worth of AMX and spares and fuel) and an open trailer with a truck called FUBAR. He never told us what it meant. With my sisyter and I in the car, the whole thing including the F150 with the 302 probably weighed 7000 lb.

We would haul out to NYIRP dragstrip in Rochester via the Thruway. He showed us the Hill from Hell.

The Hill from Hell was where the Thruway widened to three (or maybe four) lanes. FUBAR loved that right lane. He told us that if he started at 70 mph and matted it at the bottom, that the top was around 60 mph.

Going over it now, it's not even that big of a hill.

My, how far we've come.

tuna55 wrote: We would haul out to NYIRP dragstrip in Rochester via the Thruway. He showed us the Hill from Hell. The Hill from Hell was where the Thruway widened to three (or maybe four) lanes. FUBAR loved that right lane. He told us that if he started at 70 mph and matted it at the bottom, that the top was around 60 mph. Going over it now, it's not even that big of a hill. My, how far we've come.

I know that hill... The way most people drive, you'd think every car on the road was so underpowered that they'd lose 15 mph up that hill... But yeah, it's not really all that steep a hill.

Wall-e wrote: In reply to Keith Tanner: You certainly don't want to go too hard with a loaded diesel and a manual. I have snapped the flange on more than one axle shaft beating on F-350 and 450s. Depending on where they break it's not always easy fishing the remaining shaft out of the axle tube especially if you snap it at the splines in the diff.

I definitely try to avoid shock loads - it's all about the timing of the shifts. That's just mechanical empathy.

In reply to rslifkin:

Sounds like the LOOOONG climb heading east on I-40 out of Knoxville, up into mountains and into thinner air. You can feel a heavily loaded car lose power as available oxygen drops (and your ears pop), and it's a good test of your cooling system!

WildScotsRacing wrote: In reply to rslifkin: Sounds like the LOOOONG climb heading east on I-40 out of Knoxville, up into mountains and into thinner air. You can feel a heavily loaded car lose power as available oxygen drops (and your ears pop), and it's a good test of your cooling system!

Nah, that hill on I-90 is nowhere near that bad. It's far from the worst in NY state. IIRC, it's under 2 miles long.

From some of the fuel system repair costs my Ford tech buddy has been telling me about, these new trucks are pretty much a liability after the warranty expires.

I am not interested in owning anything with a potential 5 figure repair bill. Especially not if its "just a truck".

KyAllroad wrote: I rent trucks to pull our club trailer now. 2015 model 3/4 ton units from the place that will pick you up. Crew cab, long bed, 4x4's. Hemi Dodge is good, empty. With the trailer it sucks. Diesel Ford is the best empty but honestly only middling at pulling the trailer. The Cummins, well now, NOW we're getting serious about towing some serious loads. It barely even notices the trailer which is a big, wallowing beast of a bumper pull trailer. If I was in the market for something to pull long distance: Cummins all the way.

Good experiences? I'm going to start renting with them for my Key's trips. Towing the boat with the Corolla around town is fine, when it's fully loaded with gear and driving for 7 hours not so much.

In reply to Enyar: Oh, the experience was perfectly good. If you just need a truck on occasion, then renting is a pretty solid way to go. No maintenance, insurance, depreciation, nuthin'. Just fuel up when you return it and let someone else worry about things like nuking a trans or aged out tires.

My only issue was that I left my POV at the rental place last month overnight and scumbag thieves broke into it to rip off my fancy $99 stereo.

In reply to rslifkin: You make a good point.. I grew up in the carburetor days when acceleration meant a big squirt of gas from the accelerator pump upon acceleration. With modern fuel injection's ability to learn doesn't that penalty get reduced if you practice short shifting techniques? With my Corvette I'd even skip shift if the situation allowed it. When I sold the car the new buyer was impressed with the average fuel mileage it displayed and later complained to me that he could never get anywhere near my numbers..

My coworker just bought a new '16 Chevy half-ton. It's a nice truck and all, but it cost him somewhere around $44K. As much as I'd like a new truck, I just can't imagine spending that sort of money. As mentioned, most of the 3/4 and 1 tons cost more than half as much as my house. Yeah, they're more capable than ever, but damn...

Yeah just super capable trucks these days. But why not. If people buy it then it will keep getting more and more overdone. The towing power is nice. I did tow using a work dually diesel truck, manual. I looped it making a U turn to go pick up my load. Just completed the 360 on power then went on my way. Once the massive trailer was added it was very capable to go up any hill.

I miss the 1997 Dodge Dakota RWD manual. Reaching.....Hell seeing into the bed was easy compared to the super high stock (small) trucks. Why do people want to lift loads higher? I remember when low lift height was a major engineering target. Now it seems to be go as high as possible without causing the thing to tip over on a cloverleaf exit ramp.

Of all vehicles the large pickup truck would most likely be most efficient if they can get a good hybrid powertrain developed. Electric motor torque to get you up to 20mph then the fueled motor kicks in. Dodge made a small production run of some kind of hybrid for commercial guys only.

In reply to Advan046:

I think the load height has to do with the combination of ever increasing weight capacity, and the desire to make trucks ride well, even unloaded. Means they need a ton of travel when they soften up the rear suspension.