The second link says it'll give you the discounted price, but I couldn't find it anywhere. I'll try again at the office where I've got some bandwidth. That site definitely isn't designed for dialup. Guess maybe I could use KBB to see what invoice is supposed to be on it, too.
I got the 3500 Crew Cab with duallies and diesel with all options except sunroof and snowplow package. Even got dual alternators. Paid MSRP and got $5k more for my trade-in than KBB says it's worth.
The best deal I was able to get at Ford was MSRP and $2200 less than the Chevy dealer gave me for my trade-in. On a truck that was priced $3k higher.
I was already leaning slightly toward the Chevy because of the torque, the Allison tranny, and most importantly that the interior (at the LT trim level) is head and shoulders above Ford's Lariat package. It may seem really minor to Ford, but it's a real big deal to me that in the Ford you can't see your at-the-moment fuel economy. Unless you want to reset. In the Chevy you can see what you're getting now in addition to what you've gotten since your last reset.
The clinchers for me turned out to be price, I was getting *far* better fuel economy when I test-drove the Chevy, and once I drove a heavy-duty truck with the same interior as our Suburban (except for the Sub's sunroof), I was absolutely hooked.
I don't use my truck often, but when I do, I spend anywhere from 1.5 to 3.5 hours in it and will do a couple of even longer hauls this year. I really would prefer cloth seats just for that reason, but the fancier packages all include leather. But the new Ford felt no different than my old one (except that it had a really crappy stereo -- mine's a good aftermarket one) while the Chevy was not only really comfortable, it has a lot of extras I've come to really love in the Suburban. Including one of the better sound systems I've ever heard that shipped with the vehicle. I won't be upgrading this stereo. Although it'll probably gain a sub-woofer.
I figure I'll give it 2-3 years and see if Ford has gotten their interior act together yet.
I checked out the Dodge and quickly dismissed it because it was no better than the Ford inside and the interior of the Crew Cab is no bigger than the extended cabs from the competition. Yeah, it's got back doors, but they're a lot smaller than on the Ford and Chevy.
And maybe in the next 2-3 years, the torque wars will yield trucks doing 700-800 out of the box.
My 99 F350 started life making 500 and was easily chipped to 600 and could've reached 700 with a little more work (the old Dodge's can go MUCH higher, but not the new ones from what I've heard), but the Ford's tranny couldn't handle all that torque. Not when it was actually being put to work. If I gave it too much throttle from a standing start with 16k lbs of trailer on it, it'd shudder violently. And if I got it up to a slow rolling start then floored it on entrance ramps, it'd take *forever* to reach highway speed and the CEL would come on several times along the way (likely intermittent overboost).
I'll be really curious to see how the Allison holds up long-term to the work it's going to have to deal with.
BTW, I was mentioning that the Chevy got far better fuel economy than the Ford I test-drove. Well, if you factory order the Chevy, the 4.10 rear-end (which the Ford had) was all you could get, but the one I got has 3.73's. That would seem to account for the better fuel economy, but the Chevy apparently gives up some tallness at the tranny. Both truck turned 1900 rpm at 60 mph.
I'm really pumped about the 2nd alternator in the Chevy. Now I'll be able to very seriously charge my trailer batteries on the way to the track and if I drain the batteries, I should be able to just start the truck and have plenty of juice at 105 amps per alternator.
Which reminds me. I'm going to have to bite a huge bullet soon and get at least a pair of 100+ watt solar panels for the trailer. Have decided to put a small refrigerator in it and I seriously doubt the batteries will be able to keep up with it without getting a daily dose of at least a little juice. Although it probably bears investigating to see if it'd be worthwhile to get one of those refrigerators the tree-huggers (I can call 'em that -- I consider myself one) use in their remote homes. Possibly DC-powered. I'll also check to see if ones like I had in my travel trailer (except I don't need/want the propane part) are efficient. Most important will be its ability to stay cold (and therefore not have to run the compressor often) when a week or two goes by without the doors being opened.
I'll always haul beer in a cooler though. Hauling track beer in a fridge is like lighting a joint with a Zippo (or so I'm told). It's just plain wrong. But as the size of the track gang grows, so grows the number of things to haul to the track.
And while I'm still on the subject of the trailer, now I need to get a toilet seat to glue to the lid of the cooler. A friend said he was heading to the restroom and I said "Use the cooler. I do.", and I can't leave it alone. <g> And I need to try to remember to get a second clock for the trailer. And set it 45 minutes slow and label it "FPT" (Ford Peoples' Time).
My friends and I have been slowly making the trailer our home away from home. As soon as one of my best track buds saw the new rig, he said "It's not a track trailer yet. I'll bring something for you next weekend." and next weekend he showed up with a really old bottle opener from a bar. We mounted it low enough on the wall that it can be crawled to. The beer I bring for Porsche, BMW, and Audi events isn't the kind you twist the lid off of.
For American car events, I have to bring <shudder> the likes of Budweiser and Coors.
While I'm still yacking about cars, etc, I like to try to get at least one new thing done to the trailer before each track weekend, no matter how minor. Just so long as I'm making progress. This time I'm going to go with a stereo. Which will really be awfully handy since MAM's PA system is pretty lacking in a noisy paddock but they've put the system on a small FM transmitter so we can pick up the PA on 105.1 FM.
After next weekend's event, I think I've got at least 4 weeks until the next event, so that's when I'll get something figured out to secure the cars. The existing hooks aren't in usable locations when hauling two cars. I've made drawings for a kind of wheel chocks my son is going to make for me that I can use a cordless drill to raise and lower. Wheel chocks will be good enough. All I need to do is make sure the cars don't move back and forth under normal conditions. In a bad accident, they wouldn't hold the cars still, but when I think about it, there's a pretty narrow range of scenarios where tie-downs would save the cars but chocks wouldn't. In most scenarios that the chocks wouldn't do the trick, neither would tie-downs.
And I want to be able to raise and lower the chocks (or my son might come up with something that's easily removable instead) mainly so people don't trip over them in the trailer.
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