2006 "LLY" or Gen4 Cummins??
 

guys... i'm really hurtin' right now & need some help! :eek2:
i've been driving standard since i was 11 & ABSOLUTELY REFUSE to own an auto for a long list of reasons.

i've enjoyed my current factory 5speed GMC since '06, and have thoroughly loved her to death... but with approaching that point in life where me & the wife're planning to start popping out little versions of us in the next year or so, a regular cab won't be too conducive to familial getting-around-ness... i know; i've made a couple road trips with 3-4 adults in it before.

so in looking for a decent newer replacement with a stick & back seat, that leaves me with the NBS heavy duties & diesel dodges (up through '08 blue ovals are right out... because ford!). after narrowing down my needs, tempered by daily driver considerations, it comes down to a diesel 2500 in either make (to keep the 6.5' bed & not lose a third to half my fuel mileage). with the LB7 injectors & LLY injectors/cooling/head gaskets, that really just leaves the '06 "LLY" (really a LBZ on previous tune) to not gamble on the previous d-max issues... and still end up paying $20k+ for a 14yr-old truck (assuming i can even find a decent one for sale... which i'm miraculously looking at a stock-ish 112k mi one right now).

or i could jump ship, abandon all that is holy & right, and grab a '18 dodge for ~$40k that'll have a fraction of the miles, much fancier doodads inside (which i'm still leery of... more expensive crap to break & been proven to get hacked into/tracked), and even a little warranty left ('til i void it with mods). and then there's the DEF/DPF... but it'd put me in the same boat as deleting the EGR from either truck, so whatever. i've got emissions exemptions for the next 10yrs & no inspections.

if it was you, would you hold to your fanboy principles & ride the hopes and dreams train as long as possible shooting for the '06 (and have the same dilemma trying to find an '18 dodge in 10-15yrs to replace the '06)?
or should i just cut bait & settle on a cummins truck now?

well, the initial sucky news is that the '06 would be $260 more per year to insure than Penny
...tack on another $500/yr for a new cummins. :(


all the things you start learning when you've never owned a vehicle in the most-current generation / body style before

...but i reckon with the '19s being Gen5, that wouldn't even be true now.

I will never own a Dodge or a Ram. My 05 LLY has the head gasket issue but it isn't severe enough for me do drop the money into it to have it repaired just so I wont have a few drops of coolant on the ground. At least you looked into the know problems with them, I just jumped at this sale before looking at it good because they are hard to find here that are still stock. LBZ would be my go to. '06 and up has the 6 speed Allison also.

Man Id manual swap something before going down this rabbit hole

for example you can Cayenne GTS's in a manual. X5's too. All the space for babies

unless you need a diesel, don't buy one. Paying premiums for everything, and in the case of Duramax: it's the same truck just burns oil yet parts are 3x as expensive as gas trucks. Tuning diesel emissions is a major no-no right now, so that's gonna put a hamper on your day

Gas SuperDuty's should have a manual until like '10 ish. I believe you could get the v10 manual as well. No way would I get a 5.4 "SuperDuty"

thanks for the inputs, guys.
what drove your beef with dodges? from what i understand & test drove a few years ago, the 13+ cummins emissions crap works better, the later G56s were stronger, and the 14+ HD frames/suspensions fixed the Gen3 weaknesses.

i had an '05 LLY: drove it three times before having to sue the dealer to take it back for the injectors & head gaskets going out (on top of the fuel cooler'd rusted through & dumped half my fuel on the road driving home). had a couple friends go through 2 sets of LB7 injectors. not looking to repeat that stuff, so i agree on the '06 GMs (but as mentioned in the beginning, i couldn't care less about the allison... ZF only).

but the kicker's finding a stick GTS Cayenne (which wouldn't like towing my car [though it's rated better than i thought])... we looked for some last year for my wife before eyeing the H3. it wouldn't have the cargo capacity of a full-size truck no how. and have you seen the ownership costs for Cayennes (my old boss had one)? you thunk diesels was bad! and X5s stopped manuals after '06, too, if i remember right.

and again, no more fords for me. they're almost as ugly as the new tundra, and the triton motors & powerstrokes from back then ('08 was the latest) all sucked donkey balls for reliability. as for why i want a duramax over the LQ4 or 8.1 trucks, it's because it's also for my daily driver... and the 8-12mpg the gassers saw in 6500lb trucks can't match the 15-20ish the diesels got (especially after a little tuning). and even if i didn't delete the EGR/DEF/DPF, there's a company in denver (ATS) has really made some good progress in figuring out emissions-compliant diesel tuning over the last year (did a lot of studying all night).

but going back to the end of my original post, the biggest discouragement is that if i'm going through the trouble of stick-swapping any GM truck i'd want (GMT800 - no desire for any of the newer designs), it still leaves me with a 14-20yr old truck that'd needs to last me the next 15-20yrs as a DD. i've got a thing for vehicle personalization / attachment & don't like to get rid of them if they still serve what i need them to do - especially when i put a lot into them.

that's what got me thinking i might need to just suck it up & start with a new, fresh slate so i can milk it for all it's worth. then once that truck's toast, maybe try & find another or build my frankentruck out of whatever old heap i can find by then.

I’ve been researching diesels as well.

The 6.0 Fords are a no no for me.

Newer stuff has DPF and more emissions to deal with but from what I’ve read, change the DPF every 50-60k and it’s trouble free. When DPFs clog, they fk everything else up.

If I come across a Ford 7.3 and Dodge 5.9, I’ll get it if the price is right.

Every vehicle has issues, just some more then others.

No Issues with My 05 LLY.

The biggest thing is the maintenance and changing out the intake Mouthpiece on the turbo on the LLY.

My buddy had a 16 dodge cummins.
I personally hated the ride of the rear coil springs Vs Leaf in the rear. The Emissions crap started giving him issues at the 100k mark.
Other thing was the shift strategy. It felt like it had a flair in it in certain gears. Dodge came out with an update that was better but occasionally it would still do it

it's really long, but here's an explanation i came across earlier today that seems to make sense & made me a little more comfortable with the EPA trash on the newer trucks.
but it sounds like delete it & run away on anything >5-6yrs old.

and to be fair, the LLYs did seem to be much more hit-or-miss than the ' w a i t - f o r - i t ' LB7s. EGR plate & LBZ (or top kick/kodiak) mouthpiece would do the trick so long as you were more cognizant of EGTs when you towed.

and i've also read the dodge 3500 leaf springs did tend to feel better under load than the 5-link... but i don't pull more than 7000ish, so i think it's deal-with-able. what made you hate it? too floaty? would some stiffer shocks take care of that? and shift programming means nothing to me.


and what gives with the no CD player thing now?