Diesel truck discussion

bought a 81 chevy pickup many years ago. still had the original window sticker in the glove box. under 4k sticker for a k2500 with cloth seats, 4x4, and 350 with a 4 spd which for the time was a fairly loaded truck.

blame government for allot of the price increase.....forget the exact numbers but it was something like $15k worth of the cost of the average car($35k) was due to government mandates implemented just from 1998-2012. imagine the total cost of all those mandates the government has imposed from about 1970 thru current. Majority of the safety increases came from just a few major upgrades.....safety glass, collapsable steering column, and seat belts got us 90% of the safety we currently have.....now we are adding thousands of dollars worth of safety equipment just to gain tenths of percentage point gains in safety jsut to protect the morons of society. the same applies for emissions.....spending thousands to gain almost unnoticeable reductions in emissions

 

1999 my F250 XLT Ex Cab long bed V10 had a sticker of just shy of $31k. Same truck 20 years later is about 65% more money.

 

To try and compare a 1981 carbureted 3/4T pickup with todays trucks in pricing is a fools errand.
Your 81 most likely lacked - PW/PL, cruise, tilt?, fuel injection, (insert every other high-end option that may be available today) and it cost ~1/4 of the median household income in a time of high interest rates.

The trucks of today would put every high end luxury car in '81 to shame in "fairly loaded truck" category
PW/L, power seats, ABS(mandated with stability control in 2013) 4 wheel disc brakes(still not gov't mandated), airbags(mandated 1998 -7+yr integration) now have increased from 2 to 8-12 in some vehicles.
Backup cameras that were once a novelty 15-yrs ago are the newest mandate.

All that stuff does add up to money in a vehicle - don't blame it on gov't, the insurance companies pay a lot of money to mandate the safety features( or blame the guys that take the money)
Consider the 81 might of had a 2-3yr warranty maybe 24-36kmiles and it likely had reliability problems beyond 75k, nowadays its all 3-5yr 100k with expectancies in excess of 150k

 

I see to an extent where you are coming from, but on the other hand an 81 chevy would be rusted up in 5-7 years and the engine would be wore out in 150k or sooner. Today's vehicles last longer, are more fuel efficient, have more power, and stop and handle better. Really a half ton of today with a V8 would be as heavy duty as a old 3/4 ton.

 

Except in the suspension.

 

Add a heavy duty payload package to the half ton then.

 

While I agree that the new 1/2 tons are much more capable than the older ones...no way do they have the load carrying capacity of the old 250-350s...that old "F250 highboy" we had on the farm was one stout sonofaB!

 

Look at the frame under those old trucks. It is c channel with in crossmembers. The new half tons are fully boxed with welded crossmembers. I measured the frame on a 78 f-350 and compared it to a 13 f-150 and they were the same height. Put a load on an old truck and drive over some uneven ground and watch how the frame twists.

 

Still wouldn't hook a gooseneck to it. Wouldn't want to to a 70's either but for different reasons.

 

Flex is ok if it's designed with that in mind.

 

I wouldn't be afraid of a 14,000 gross gooseneck behind one.

 

I wonder if the newer frames aren't made so they flex less and that allows the engineers to control the suspension/ride better? Also made to pass the much more rigid safety regs now too.

 

we have patched frames and replaced frame sections on 5-7 year old trucks.....those fully boxed frames the manufacturers love to brag about aren't a good thing IMHO.

most of your last longer stop better was done by the manufacturers to compete with each other not by government mandate. government mandates adding cost is not the same thing as natural competition that improves a vehicle.

think about all the crap mandated taht most of dont want or need but the government has given us no choice but to pay for....ABS, stability control, TPMS, emissions(taht mostly hurt fuel mileage not help it), 10 air bags............

 

i know all to well about all the electronic goodies that have become "standard" equipment today that even back 10 yrs ago wasnt even an option. yes those add cost but those are cost added on top of the government mandated stuff.

Even back in 2005 when i bought a new truck it was impossible to find a true work truck. i wanted bare bones....only option i was really concerned with was AC. hunted high and low, as far away as 2 states, had to settle on a truck that had AC, tilt, cruise, chrome bumpers and grill, automatic, am/fm cd.....that was as bare as i could find

 

When I saw this sticker I had to get it for my truck.

I would say that is why they are stronger.

 

Hard to tell how many lives those things have saved. ABS is great, there isn't a human that can drive better than it can. The vehicle will stop shorter and straight with abs. Stability control works off the abs, you may have a steering angle sensor and a yaw sensor then the programming in the ABS module. Another thing that falls into the same category is trailer sway control. I got behind (from a safe distance) a guy in a F-150 going up the interstate with an enclosed trailer. He must have had 2000 or 2500lbs of tongue weight on it. When he would hit a bump the trailer would go crazy. I think the only thing that was saving him was the trailer sway control.

TPMS is another good thing. You have no idea how many vehicles that come into our shop with tires that are over 10 psi low. We have a yearly state inspection in VA. The TPMS is not part of it but I wish it was. There are so many vehicles out there with a service TPMS light on. When Mercedes came out with TPMS in the early 90's it worked of the ABS. It would see that one wheel was turning a little slower and know it was low. There was talk of the manufacturers going back to this system instead of having the TPMS sensors that need replaced every 5-7 years. The sensors really don't go bad, but the battery in them does.

Airbags make for a safer vehicles too. Another good thing that is a mandate is a back up camera.

 

Are we really to lazy to check our tires anymore?

 

I had to drop a 100hp electric motor off at the repair shop in town today- that was more than the ‘09 f150 4x4 extcab wanted. 17k mile work truck. Plenty of power, just squirrely over 40mph. Picked up a 185cfm air compressor on the Pintel hitch on the way back- not bad but still felt it.

Modern 1/2t are built for comfort and fuel efficiency not hauling regularly.

 

In a nutshell yes.
I think it was pushed by insurance companies after the ford-firestone battle of under inflated tire blowout roll overs in SUVs

It is kind of nice to know you picked up a screw before finding a flat on your way to work the next morning, or worse having a blowout at 65