Half-Ton Shoot Out

Yup and yup. Too bad they never do "10 years later" comparison videos. I'll would love to see one with say a 1st Gen Tundra vs a Dakota V8. See who did better as a long term investment.

I dont need all the fancy shit, I don't want more that can go wrong. I think my wife and I draw the line at 2006 for cars. Tire pressure sensors, wifi, touch screen navigation, backup cameras, all things I would prefer to live without.

 

All the new American trucks are nice, just wait a year and you can get them half off.

 

Agreed 100%, this isn't even apples-to-apples. Lame test, flawed from the get-go.

 

It did poorly by what standard?

The judge gave a subjective rating based on his subjective observations from driving each truck. I certainly wouldn't form a definitive opinion on the engine simply from watching a video...

FYI, this guy has done reviews of other diesels (including the 2.8l diesel Colorado)...he says pretty much the same thing about all diesels: they're slow and lack power. I would take his "observations" with a grain of salt and go test drive these vehicles for yourself if you're interested in getting a feel for them.

 

You own a diesel F-150?

 

Sounds like you're judging engines that you haven't even driven.

I don't know what you mean by the XD gasser "beat" the Cummins. The gasser might be quicker up a hill, but speed isn't the point of a diesel...its pulling power. And most of the owner reviews confirm that the 5.0l v8 Cummins has decent pulling power. Moroever, if I were going to be doing long highway trips with heavy loads for years on end, I'd pick that 5.0l Cummins over the 5.6l gasser any day of the week. The packaging of the 5.0l Cummins might be suspect (I agree that the XD platform has a lot of disadvantages compared to a real 3/4 ton), but the engine itself seems decent enough.

Ecodiesel has had reliability issues (pretty standard for FCA). The 3.0l powerstroke is still new and has yet to really prove, or disprove, itself. The fact that it crapped itself on a TFL test is not confidence-inspiring (though that also is pretty standard for Ford vehicles). I'd like to drive one myself before I decide its a POS motor. I'm certainly not going to make that call after watching 20-30 minutes of youtube videos.

 

AFAIK, all the 1/2 ton GMCs have "Active Fuel Management" (AFM) , but they may as well call it "ticking time bomb feature". Read the GM forums -- there's an unacceptably high risk of catastrophic engine damage from AFM ... can happen in a few 1000 miles or at 60K miles ...
Then there's the fragile 8-10 speed transmissions, engine start/stop (can it even be permanently disabled?), and high rate of incurable "chevy shake" vibrations at highway speeds.
I've been a long time GM owner (since early 1980s), but no way would I have bought a K2xx based GM ... too much a "roll the dice" proposition.
People will pooh-pooh Tundras because they are perceived as "dated", but to me that signifies "reliable" and avoiding fads.