Home Forums Gear Hunting Trucks and Four-Wheel Drives 3/4 ton vs 1/2 ton?

There's allot of truth to that except that the 1/2 tons of today are the 3/4 tons of yesterday. My son owns a Chevy 4x4 2500 HD and I drive it often. It does not get the gas mileage I do nor does it ride the same plus it is lower to the ground. Hey, it's a good rig no doubt but unless I had a big overhead camper,I can do everything he can and cheaper. We both can fill the bed to the roof with firewood and haul a trailer that holds 3 chords of wood.

He can do nothing that I can't except that big ' ol camper on the back. Same horsepower and mine has more torque.I don't see the benefit these days of a 3/4 ton over a modern 1/2 ton other than about 10K new.

This is like the 270/30-06 debate. There are those that swear by the '06 and those that do everything with the 270 just fine except that big old heavy Brown Bear aka camper in truck talk.( laughing)

Jayco

.270 is better.

The 3/4 ton has HD wheels, brakes, tires, axles, shocks, bearings..., important if you're hauling/towing close to max GVW.

So you think Ford Motors is going to sell you an F-150 rated at 2690 lbs payload and towing 11,500 lbs backed by (warranty) just to fix stuff you don't think a 1/2 ton can handle?.... Think again, they changed allot of things including if you read,a 7 lug wheel and thicker frame........

These new F-150's are not the 1/2 tons of old.

Jayco

I'm not knocking your truck. Just pointing out reasons some have for buying heavy duty.

Learned to drive in a Model B pickup. Bought my first brand new truck in '69 (GMC Longhorn, big block). Owned lots of 1/2 & 3/4 ton trucks, all 4x4's since '87. Done lots of towing from BC to BC (Baja California to Bella Coola, British Columbia).

Sometimes I needed a 3/4 ton truck. Now I am happy with my (small) '00 Tundra extra cab 4x4. It's only a 1/2 ton but is adequate for towing my 24' Silver Streak travel trailer.

So,your an old timer also.... It's hard for some of us old goats to realize times have changed and that now a 1/2 ton is really a 3/4 ton compared to the old days as well as a good equipped 3/4 ton is equal to the old 1 tons or better.

Jayco

I had a5 8 Ford 1/2 T, 292 Engine as I recall, 4 speed,short box.Darn good little truck.
We needed to haul some horses from Albquerque up to the Peco Wilderness years aago so I hooked the truck to a 4 horse trailer. I had no brake controller for the trailer brakes and loaded up 4 horses.

I came down off of Glorieta Pass. Actuslly not much of a pass, but I needed to get of at the exit there. I ended cruising thru the stop sign, going across to the entrance and going back onto I25 with that load of horses pushing me. Then I got stopped in Pecos by the brand inspector and didn't have brand papers for the horses of which none were mine.
If it weren't for a bunch od boy scouts piling out of two cars behind me (reason I needed the horses). The brand inspector would have impounded the horses ,trailer, and truck,but he let me go.

I got a little smarter after thtt, (not much) ,but did get a 3/4 T Dodge equipped with a brake controller.

I would put the longevity of my 2002 Ford 7.3 diesel up against a new 1/2 gas truck. In ten years my truck will be worth more and perform better. Buy a used diesel if you are not sure.

Slide in camper + trailer = 3/4 ton for sure.

Yup. Anyone who thinks a half ton is as capable as a diesel 3/4 ton clearly doesn't know what he's talking about. Granted, current half tons are far more capable than the older ones, but no way can they do the work of a diesel, neither will they last as long if you work them hard.

Torque, that's what moves things. Show me a gasser that makes 650 ft/lb stock, or over 1000 with minor tweaking. I pulled 7500lb on a trailer to Colorado from Georgia earlier this year, never had to come out of overdrive unless traffic slowed me down, and got 13 mpg at 70-75 mph doing it.

comparing the '12 F150 crew cab to the 250, there's a 1000 lb difference in payloads. Its true that the 150 will haul a lot more than the older ones, but it's still not a Superduty.

In the 80's and 90's, the manufacturers started to lighten up the 3/4 tons. When ford went to 2 body styles they even made a non super duty F250. Today's half ton's are the equals to the 3/4 ton's of that era, but they are not equal to the 3/4 ton's of today.

Buy the 3/4 ton. When its time to sell its worth more to all the potential buyers who think a 1/2 ton is a "go to town" car.

That pretty much hit the nail on the head. I have spent and spend a lot of time behind the wheel hauling horses around.

My own 1/2 ton of past, my present 3/4 ton. Friends new/old 1/2, 3/4, 1 tons.

Todays 1/2 tons are more then capable of hauling say a 20 foot steel goose neck, but get a horse or two moving around in back and you can be all over the place.

3/4 ton, you can feel them but you don't feel un-safe about it.

5.9 cummins 2004-2007. I can get 20+mpgs not towing on 2006 cummins. Don't get the new 6.7s. New superdutys are getting good mpgs from what I hear. I won't own a half ton gas truck ever. Can't wait to to drive the new 1500 diesels.

Diesel might have better mpg but it costs more per gallon also

The f150 Eco boost is a 1/2 to that's made to pull

90% of the 420 pounds of torque is supposedly between 1700-5000 rpm

"might" being the keyword here as far as mpg, because you have to look at how the truck is driven to get that better mpg. My gas truck gets as good of mpg (empty) as my last diesel.

True. Heavier loads = heavier-duty truck

People seem to be willing to discount diesels because of the current price difference compared to gas. The spread in the West is 10 cents today. For many years diesel was cheaper than gas. It is likely to be cheaper than gas in the near future with the advent of more biofuels.

10 cents? Are you talking about the difference between gas & diesel? If so, the difference here is .70, not .10.