Choosing Our Ride - Trucks

Blog Post #3 - Written April 20, 2025

Choosing Our Ride - Trucks

Megan and I have never owned a truck before and our only experience driving one was driving a 26’ U-Haul truck towing our old Toyota Corolla from UT to OH in 2017. And the only time I tried backing that up I immediately jack-knifed and had to unhitch the car haha.  So when we told the RV dealer that we would buy a truck later, he understandably laughed and shook his head. But we figured, as we always do, that we’d figure it out along the way, like we always do.

I talked to my boss (a big truck guy with lots of experience towing heavy boats and stuff) and a couple others and basically learned that we’d need a F-250 or bigger. They recommended we look for 3 things:

• Towing capacity: Our trailer has a dry weight of about 9,000 lbs, so once fully packed we estimated it would be about 11,000 lbs. So we needed something with a minimum of 12,500 lbs towing capacity to have a little breathing room. And the more breathing room the better.  That essentially meant a F-350 or 450 (or it’s GMC/Chevy equivalent)

• Torque: the twisting force that moves the truck forward. Essentially the pulling power or muscle. Diesel engines have about twice as much torque as gas engines. So they recommended a diesel. And the other plus is diesel engines are built very sturdy to withstand all that torque, so they last a long time. And they get better MPG than a gas engine (although diesel fuel is typically more expensive that gas, so that was a moot point in my mind).

• Stability: Our trailer is basically a 36’ long wind-catcher. So our truck friends recommended a dually (two rear wheels). Or at the very least, if we got a single rear wheel truck, to get a long bed (8’).  

We were looking for something used in the $10-20k price range. 

Backing up, before I told my boss about our trip, just a few days after we bought the trailer, I test drove a diesel F-350 and liked it. Megan test drove it as well and took it to a mechanic who looked it over and gave us a list of things wrong with it. Would’ve cost about $3-4k to fix, but the dealer said he’d make the fixes himself for us. We were hesitant about that and I was flying out on a business trip that afternoon, so I felt rushed and we decided not to buy it. It was the first and only truck we’d seen at that point.  After another month or two of looking, I realized that we should’ve just bought that truck haha. It was exactly what we needed and super cheap too. And even if it did need more work, it still would’ve been cheaper in the end than the other trucks I was finding.

…Continued/Finished on May 3, 2025

Anyhow, after a couple months of looking online and test driving a few trucks, we found a white 2015 F-250 Super Duty, gasoline engine, and long (8’) bed. It was very low miles (only 58k) and appeared to be in great shape, well-maintained, with no rust (it had been a fleet vehicle for a local university). New tires, new brakes, etc.  As I type this, I’m sitting in a mechanic shop in Columbus OH, after just our first day of driving. I noticed that the truck pulled to the left when I braked hard. Apparently a caliper was seizing up. So there goes another few hundo. That’s life with a truck and trailer. A few hundred here, a few hundred there, a few hundred everywhere for everything! Hopefully it will stop before we run out of all our “few hundreds” haha!  It also wasn’t as rust-free as I had thought, but it’s working well enough so far and towing fine, so that’s what matters I guess!

We also bought a hard-top tonneau cover so we can store all our junk in the bed without it getting too wet. That is very nice.

I might update this later in our trip, but for now, after just our first 3 hour drive to Columbus, I wish we had been able to find a F-350 diesel, to give us more breathing room and peace of mind.  And if I did this again (or if you are thinking of doing something similar), I would get a diesel with much, much more towing capacity than we need.  But I think our truck will work fine and we will choose to be happy with it and not live in our past regrets.  The kids love the truck and I will [hopefully] learn to love it too!

TL;DR - we bought a used, low mileage 2015 F-250 gas truck, it's working so far but I wish we had an F-350 diesel for peace of mind!