@StlowMover,
I like reading your detailed, well thought out posts. I like that you are a part of your vehicle and you have so much "math and science" involved in your driving. Unfortunately I think a lot of people in the truck driving world are nowhere near your level of expertise and are a long way from knowing (or caring) about that depth in their own driving.
When moving to a pickup, well you've moved to a whole new world. Majority of pickups are grocery getters driven by people who never learned to drive a stick shift period and their daddy never taught them any "arts of driving".
AS for the new transmission for the RAMS, the 6 speed is "adequate". It will do what you ask, it will do well in any situation. I would rather have the current Aisin in my truck than the 10 speed in the Ford or Chevy (I have a Ford work truck with this trans) but I would definitely take the the ZF 8 speed. The gear ratios are excellent, hill start, skip shift and neutral while idling are all bonus's to me. Necessary? Maybe not, but it dont hurt either. Is the Aisin great? Yes, but hopefully the ZF8HD will be better.
Thx. I’d imagine many or most here are good at what they do in similar ways to earn their bread & butter.
Ask the man doing the job was how my father put it.
That said, there are owner-operators at a much higher altitude re knowledge than where I travel.
The truly dismaying aspect of multi-speed autos is the rebuild expense. I’ve heard $34k for an Eaton-12. (I don’t have a frame of reference for that number).
As to a CTD, when engine
and trans rebuild expense are high enough to “total” the truck, I don’t want such.
The little-known 5-700 CID gas truck motors of Ford & GM from the early 1960s (or Dodge 413) at least were easy to pull & rebuild after 80-90k service in trucking. Cheap relative to the TRUE price of fuel
as 2-3 rebuilds matched the Diesel engine drivetrain price against fuel burn. Once that ratio changed circa 1970, it became just that much harder for a man to go into business for himself hauling freight.
Same here with a CTD Auto.
A man can run as hard as he wants with a 1T plus gooseneck, but not make a living and re-coup the price of a new truck after X-miles.
Steady-state is where Average MPG & Average MPH come together for analysis. Changes to the latter aren’t usually supported by the former (wear rate in all indicator categories increases).
EDMUNDS TRUE COST OF OWNERSHIP used to be a good beginners way to see relations of how money is put to work.
It always comes back to
CPM: Cents-per-mile of owner & operational cost.
A factory re-manufactured engine and factory-reman factored transmission are in one’s future
before a profit is realized over X-years and Y-miles (paying one’s self a
low wage relative to gross business income).
Had we stuck with circa 2004 diesel emissions standards the focus could have been upon increased drivetrain life + fuel economy. “Aero” haulers and the like.
Light-duty vehicles are essentially throwaways. Always have been.
But there’s not been a good reason for continuing that in the last fifty years once the fixed costs all rose (Inflation & Financialization after leaving gold standard). Fuel quit being cheap as leverage in increased productivity (why turbine engine development in trains, trucks, buses, ships and cars came to a halt).
What’s the
remanufactured price of a 6-Auto? Of an 8-Auto? Does the variance pay while on the road to offset “the improvement”?
Tax laws favor only those who already have something going (Amortization & Depreciation). A light duty or lower-classed hauler (semis are Class 8)
should be a way for a man to make his way to where his best efforts fit the conditions he faces. (time & money).
Increased complexity isn’t paying.
Not that I can see.
Put it another way:
where’s the point in time & miles where there’s no finance note or major repair such that operation is almost all profit?
Profit for softball daddy is
the years of extra life putting a CTD squarely ahead of having bought a gasser.
Extra gears ain’t the answer.
As he’s not hooked to a heavy load 200-300 days/year . . .
it disappeared circa 2008 when diesel & gas prices flipped. 1995-2005 was roughly the period where Joe Sixpack could benefit in owning a diesel pickemup. Hauling his own stock and maybe earning a little extra taking his neighbors yearlings to/from the sale barn.
The modern big-inch gassers with an Auto-10 are less costly. New, and at life’s end.
Including the price of fuel. Don’t give up anything till highest weight
and number of annual days towing becomes critical (which won’t include RV’ers where solo miles always predominate).
Softball Dad may daydream about an overly large 5’er. He needs to get his act together and choose the trailer which better suits a lower overall cost (lifespan, not just weight). A trailer that won’t last as long as the finance note ain’t worth buying (composition roof, anyone?).
I’m getting old and was already crotchety. But I can’t imagine wanting a vehicle runs me above $1/mile in retirement. Or beforehand, for that matter. (Adjustment to my 2007 thinking makes that $1.40/mile).
“RV Life” in retirement will make me third-generation. The price of fuel of a days travel
ought to be no more than the overnight ground rent at an RV park in my view (the basis for comparison)
$55/night.
$3.60/gal
That’s 230-miles my 62’ combined-vehicle rig. IOW,
the fixed daily cost of these two is at $100/day. (Pickup & Trailer bought with cash long ago; highway Average MPG was central consideration once past lifespan of each vehicle).
As towing is 1/2 of vacation miles while traveling, (write that down and understand it), it matters to get that pair to a suitable minimum initial and ongoing expense, otherwise a comfy sedan and lower cost motels makes more sense. (Many of which feature microwaves & refrigerators. A hot plate and an ENGEL in the car trunk then replicates what most RV’ers actually do to “cook”).
Also, there’s all sorts of ways to fool one’s self with RV budgets, and they nearly never include maintenance & repairs over time. (Write that down also).
So,
1). How many days will I travel while hitched?
2). How many miles will that cover (distinct from solo miles on vacation)?
The
price of an RV (combined vehicle) is that over and above what was better suited as transportation.
Per night aboard.
1). Standard price of a good family vehicle. Deduct that from a diesel pickemup. (Add expense of major repair)
2). Add RV price (ongoing annual costs; plus repairs budget).
3). The typical American RV’er travels a few weeks total time annually. 5,000-miles
extra to his normal total.
— $30k more for the diesel pickup in order to pull an overly heavy 5’er. Over five years ownership at 30-nights, that’s $200/night.
— $70k for RV at 5/years & 30-nights annually = $450/night.
Extra gears ain’t gonna pay the freight. Won’t reduce running costs (neither does tuning). Neither, also, does TOW/HAUL on Autos as “safety” (
needs antilock trailer brakes + trailer independent suspension).
— The way to play the equation of tow vehicle & trailer is to assign as much or more money to the RV (indefinite lifespan, not 70-80k miles), and
reduce the TV initial expense. Lower diesel fuel burn
alone can’t do it.
The plan to exit RV’ng is as important as the one of getting into it.
It’s not illness or family crises which cause most folks to give up. It’s the ongoing overhead expenses which cancel
the pleasure of being carefree.
Parked in the Colorado Rocky Mountains, but can’t afford the day trips to explore the state.
Getting somewhere is just one-half the vacation. It shouldn’t represent the majority of the ongoing expense (vehicles paid for and now down to own/op numbers).
Diesel pickups backed themselves into a corner (BS gov regs). But fuel price did the most damage (energetic content per gallon) once prices flipped.
My last semi-tractor was a full-on typical corporate aero effort. Consider that with:
an engine twice the displacement
a curb weight twice as heavy
an aero height twice that of a pickup
more than twice as many tires
I could run bobtail (no trailer) and get almost the same fuel mileage as plenty of you running solo given your reports. At the end of the day it didn’t matter you got there twenty-minutes ahead.
Both of us are in OD. Running steady-state.
That’s the problem to solve for.
If the extra gears can’t aid in keeping the average speed consistent (terrain & load primarily), they certainly won’t in FE terms.
Detroit just plays with power numbers once they can program engine output/turbo vane angles using more gears. In pickups.
Not to lower your operational costs.
Big trucks are
far ahead of where they were circa 2004 (as against early Third Gen; the last time power/economy was in balance).
.
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