DougF

www.thedieselgarage.com is your friend.

CumminsTex

Actually check out www.cumminsforum.com/forum/ or www.turbodieselregister.com they are two of the best cummins sites on the web. diesel garage is a good one too

CumminsTex

Alot of it depends what you want to do with the truck. It is not uncommon to find 500+ hp trucks with over 200k mi still running strong. the cummins is in my opinion the cheapest to get 500+hp from and still have a very street fiendly daily driver. Larger product avaliability, simple to work on yourself. The real power houses are the 12 valve trucks and 2nd gen 24 valve trucks retrofitted with a p-pump (12 valve injection pump). The 3rd gens make lots of power, but are very expensive to work on when it comes to the common rail. Dodge trucks have their problems though. Crappy front ends, weak stock auto trans, 98.5-02 VP44 is problematic but not that bad. Stay away from 98.5-00 and early 01 since they have the dreded 53 block thats prone to crack. All in all search the internet take some test drives learn as much as you can and make an informed decision. I was in the same boat a few years back and I went with the cummins mostly b/c of the fact that the basic engine design hadn't changed much over the years and I knew it was a solid foundation

Spoolin

iTrader: (8)

Wow...going digging I see!! All on opinion. They can all haul the job you need them to haul and can all be modded slightly to produce higher numbers and for relatively cheaper than gas engines can in order to produce the same numbers. As far as serious modding ability I heard cummins is the way to go.

CumminsTex

true all 3 can do the job you need to do, and from driving and towing with all 3 (stock) they are pretty evenly matched. They all tow good and drive good. Before I bought a dodge I looked at ford and chevy. Since I wanted big power the cummins seemed to be the way to go for me. I found a wider varity of performance parts, and no I don't mean "chips" I mean hardware, Turbos, cams, heads, injectors, pistons........... You can make any of em go fast just depends on how much $$$ you got. I like my 01.5 even if it did come with a weak lift pump and injection pump from the factory. The VP is a good pump as long as you ditch the lift pump as soon as you get it and go to a pusher pump. But really man its all up to you. buy what you like they can all do the job you need. BTW my opinon on the subject was that the cummins is the cheapest to build.

Meierznutz

iTrader: (1)

From personal experience I can tell you that I bought my '02 CTD six speed because I wanted a truck with a straight front axle, a strong motor and a trans that would outlast an auto. Now I admit that I have had some issues with my rig, but they were mostly small stuff or under the warranty. I have had my share of bad luck with this truck, but for the most part that has been from {other people} user error. I have made some improvements and Love my truck. I would own another if I had to replace it.
That said, watch lift pump issues and if you have the coin, get a FASS system and a gauge. If you get a NV5600, fill it to the plug and then pull the shifter tower and dump another quart of fluid in {I learnd that one the hard way}. Geno's Garage has a cooler and filter kit that I use and recommend. Track bars are good for 9 months or 15k miles, so plan on buying the mount to install a 3G bar if you dont have a plow frame on the nose. Other than that the only other thing I can say is that 4 of my dyed in the wool Chevy friends went out and bought CTD Dodges because of the things they saw mine do and the ammount it could push/pull/tow.
In the end, buy what you want and enjoy it ... Chris

383 Ram Man

One of my friends used to do Hot Shot runs and tried all 3 trucks. He said out of all of them, the Cummins pulled the best and lasted forever. He puled big water tanks all across the mid south. We have never had any problems out of ours and ours is a rebuilt wrecked one. Its an auto and pulls fine, gets good mpg and rides good. The Duraslack has more power as does the Furd but they are not as durable from what Ive seen and read as the Cummins.

TXARKITEKT

I am a Chevy guy through and through, but I would choose nothing less than a Cummins, IMHO. Like others have said, we could hash out a 200 page dissertation on why we would make this choice, but what it comes down to is you getting out and test driving each truck you would like to buy. Then, from those choices, make sure you find out all the past info on the vehicle. This is extremely important when buying a used diesel truck. Everybody is different--we all have different likes/hates and this carries over into our taste in trucks. I will give a huge 2 thumbs up for the Dodge, but it's ultimately your choice in the end...

blainesdad

Power with a cummins is amazing, and they are pretty much bulletproof motors. The fuel mileage is phenomonal as well.

1BADMAX01

I'm a GM guy myself and I love my Duramax to death, but I would and probably will own a Cummins powered truck in the future. It's just a matter of personal preference.