[Francis]

Hey Mark,
My dad "owns" a 2500 Suburban with a gaint 8.1L motor and I "own" an F-250 with the 5.4. I say "own" because I drive his Suburban as much as he drives my truck. We both have second vehicles (hondas) that we commute in so they are pretty much only used for towing or hauling.

I would not recommend my 5.4 Triton for any serious towing needs. I have towed both my boats as well as several other boats (up to a 28' Mako) with it and any time there is a hill. it's brutal. I ordered my truck new with a 4.10 rear end to make it better for towing and it still only marginally gets the job done. With the truck, I get 9-10mpg towing and 13 not towing. I can say that braking in this truck is a dream. I never feel pushed by the boat.

My dad's Suburban has the largest production gas engine Chevy has, the 8.1L. It's bigger than a 454, I think it's like a 503. Anyway, it is WAY better at towing that my truck, and I do feel somewhat comftorable, but it still downshifts and sounds like it's working really hard climbing hills. It get's 8mpg towing and 11mpg not towing. Braking is OK but not as good as my truck.

Having said that I have a buddy with a diesel F-350 and the difference is literally NIGHT and DAY. You won't even notice my boat behind a diesel and even the 28' Mako or 25' Parker is hardly a strain. It's like. . .amazing. He gets 18MPG without a boat and around 15 with my boat.

Now, when I get an oil change it's 40 bucks. When he gets one, it's 80 bucks. He has filters that need to be changed every so often which are espensive and a whole host of other maintence items which are more expensive. He savings in gas mileage makes up for the maintence when gas is expensive, not when it's cheap. When my truck is ten years old and has 150,000 miles on it, it will be on the last third of it's life. His will be unphased. There are several people who have 500,000 miles or more on diesel trucks and they are still ticking.

My dad and I both had to buy gassers because of extranous reasons (his job pays for his gas and they only have a gas tank) but we both agreed if we were to do ti over again, we would get diesels.