Actually if Dodge came with an Allison transmission it would be a great truck.. until then i'll take my Silverado LT every time. Comfortable and quiet for a daily driver, 18 MPG normal / 12-13 towing at 80MPH, 360HP / 650 ft lb TQ, what more do I need?

 

Does anyone buy a deisel truck tow vehicle with a manual transmission?

 

Actually if Dodge came with an Allison transmission it would be a great truck.. until then i'll take my Silverado LT every time. Comfortable and quiet for a daily driver, 18 MPG normal / 12-13 towing at 80MPH, 360HP / 650 ft lb TQ, what more do I need?

The Allison is regarded as the best transmission of the three but is not bulletproof either. It also has the most power loss through the drivetrain of the three, therefore negating any power/torque advantage it may have.

The Dodge automatic had some issues in '04/'05, but they've since been corrected.

 

Well I like my 2008 F350 6.4L PowerStroke. Only had it a couple of months, but it is a great truck. Extremely quiet and the sequential turbos mean almost zero lag. I've been getting 14mpg mixed city/highway driving, with around 18 for pure highway driving. Haven't towed anything but my trailex & cup with it (only around 3500lbs towing + 1000lbs of gear) so I can't really reporting on towing mpg yet.

 

Actually, most of the guys who use these trucks over the road commercially prefer a 2wd dually with the manual transmission, as it tends to hold up longer than the automatic (and costs less over the truck's usable lifetime). The "normal" part-time users like us tend to buy the 4wd automatics -- we don't seem to like to shift gears in our daily drivers for one reason or another. I personally prefer the 2wd Cummins dually to the others. Statistics aside, they seem to have a bit more low end torque, at least as far as the seat of the pants feel goes.

 

I don't have any problems with the 4 speed/lock up trans in my '07 Dodge. Once it gets into lockup, it take one heck of a hill to get it to downshift. The new ones have 6 speeds though.

 

Back to the 450 (or greater) rigs. Anyone here using a commercial truck? I'm shortly in need of something like an FL70, 20' box, full lift gate, and I'd LOVE to stick a class V hitch on it and ditch the F350. Which I never use anymore unless I'm moving machines (which would be much, much easier with a truck only and not truck + 22' stacker). Would be a bit much for the Home Depot/Lowe's run; but I wouldn't run out of room. I think......

 

I really like my 2008 f450. Not great fuel economy, 8.3, even mix of unloaded highway/town and towing between 9500 and 12000. Have not looked back on my 05 350 duelly. I have almost 3k on the truck. Hopefully the fuel economy will improve around 5k. The tractor trailer tires that come on the 450 and 550 dont help fuel economy but the 19.5 rims look great.
My truck is a lariat, tan leather, 2 tone Black with gold/tan.