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

Driving my 3/4 '07 5.9 Cummins empty in MN (60 mph) I've pushed mid 20's pretty easy (hand calculated).

Hauling 11-12k across MN going 70, about 14. East river 15 ish...

Hauling boat (small 16') and a four-wheeler in back 16-18 mpg

All hand caculated


This past weekend I loaded a Smarty JR, went with the lowest tune that apparently just adds timing and adds about 40 hp/80 ft/tq in the 1500-2000 rpm range.

Not a huge difference, but a difference nevertheless in that power range and woke the truck up. The over head lie-o-meter said about a 2-3 mpg gain. Would be happy to even pick up 1 mpg, but happy with the change in power.

Would like to try the 70 hp setting, but don't want to push my luck. Would LOVE to try EFI Live with a built goerend tranny but that's a few years down the road.

Slippery slope, my friend. My '03 dyno'd 502hp and 1060 ft/lb to the wheels after a few mods and a Garmon Performance Diesel transmission. When I dial it back to stock, it doesn't feel right. My "normal" setting is about 1/3 up from stock, guessing about 80-100 hp and 200 ft/lb over stock which makes it feel quite snappy. Hard to live with the stock setting anymore.

Was at Garmons a few weeks ago and he had a built Cummins on the dyno. I watched him smoke the tires on the rollers and hp peaked at 978. They later added weight over the wheels and chained the frame to ringbolts in the concrete and made about 1090, still smoking the tires. Some pretty stout daily drivers out there.............

Dat's just karazy!

What kind of mileage do you think you would get with the diesel you want, doing the same trip?

I had a bone stock with highway tread tires '06 F250 6.0L and pulled a 24' combine header on a flatbed gooseneck @ 70MPH, into a ~25MPH headwind running the A/C and netted <6MPG. Clutch fan ran almost constantly and even W/TH button activated it hunted between 4th and 5th quite a bit.

That's the same truck (with 3.73s)I had. The least mpg I got with it was 10 towing 10,000# with a bad headwind at 65mph and the best was 18 empty with no wind at 70mph.

with the Tundra I get 8-9 towing 10,000# with a bad headwind, and I have gotten 18 empty with no headwind, but 16-17 is normal empty.
My point is that the Tundra isn't that much worse than the 6.0 Ford I had (under the same circumstances), but I don't tow all the time so I went with gas (cheaper). If I did I'd get another Dodge diesel, leave it stock and just go.

What does a Tundra weigh?

I thinking about the tail wagging the dog here.

It's around 6,100#. According to the sticker on the doorjamb the GVWR is 7,100#, but it goes on to say it's rated for 4,000# on the front axle and 4,150# on the rear axle.
I guess that means it's rated to carry 4,150# on the rear axle if you don't exceed 7,100 minus 4,150 (2,950#)on the front.
If memory serves me (and that is happening less all the time), the truck is rated to tow 10,000#, excepting that I have a 170# winch and mount on the front and I can carry 20 gallons more fuel than stock. Point being, it's not for hauling alot of weight like a 3/4 ton, just to tow it.

Again going by memory, my '06 F-250 diesel weighed right around 7,000# and had a GVWR of 10,000.

With the axle weights, either axle will carry the rated weight but not both at the same time. You can't exceed the gross vehicle weight. The higher single axle weights allow you to load up to the GVWR without having to carefully weigh each axle to get the balance. Accessories, like winches, fuel, and passengers, are considered to be part of the cargo weight. They build in a margin of error, too. I've seen trucks that are grossly overloaded without falling apart but that's not saying I'd want to be driving them. When you see a 3/4 with a dragging rear bumper, you can assume its a tad overloaded.

Thanks for a good clarification of what I was saying.

Attitudes like "My truck can haul over its rated capacity because I have overload springs" and "My truck will haul anything I can put on it" are not conducive to happy trips down the road.

With nitrous? Was it their white race truck?

Overload springs only boost the capacity of the springs. They have no affect on bearings, U-joints, lug bolts, frame, etc. Somewhere there is a critical item that will fail 1st.

Exactly. This always reminds me of an ex relative who only bought 1/2 ton GM pickups because they rode so nicely, then put overloads on them and hauled an 8' camper that the truck was not rated to carry. He never burned anything up, but only because he was lucky.

Customer's truck. Was white with pink graphics on it. Jeff's new personal daily is a 2012 1500 regular cab with a honking 6.7 in it. He was still breaking it in when I was there. I'm guessing that's going to be a fun ride too.

Guys that say things like that have likely never had their pickup across the scales, and have no idea what weight they 'actually' have.

Sort of like measuring bears by weight. There's an old saying that the heaviest bears are always shot the farthest from a scale.

I think my F250 weighs around 8800. It can pull my popup camper far more easily than my 3200 lb Taco. If I get the Taco above say 60 mph, I can feel the tail wag the dog. The F250 could spin the wheels off the popup and never know it.

To me, the critical elements in towing, are tow vehicle stability and being able to stop.

I've seen some light weight pickups pulling some trailers that are nothing but scary. Then add poor or non-existant trailer brakes and you have an accident waiting to happen.

Working brakes on a trailer are critical to me. It doesn't matter if you can tow a trailer down the road at 70 mph if you can't safely stop it. I've long been a believer in good trailer brakes.
That was one thing that sold me on the Tundra, too---they have big brakes.

Idaho requires brakes on all trailers over 1500lb. Most states say 2000. I have a utility trailer that will gross about 2 tons. When I pull it with my Bronco II, I definitely appreciate the brakes. I usually use my pickup, though, if I have any load at all on it.