Michael Maskalans <dml@tepidcola.com> wrote:
[...]
: Time to start keeping a far closer eye on Ebay for something similar
: under 150k miles in very good condition for a more realistic price.
: but they hold resale like a sonofabitch! Jon, now I know what you went
: through looking for your tow rig!
Yes indeed! :-) There seems to be around 20-50 CTDs
on Ebay at any given time, but unfortunately most of 'em are
in Texas! It would be impractical to travel all that distance
to check 'em out in person, so you basically would have to
roll the dice...
That's actually more or less what I ended up doing... I
basically bought my 3500 sight unseen from a dealer in Florida
(except for a couple of pics on a web site). Fortunately though,
I had the advantage of being able to have my brother (who is a
car salesman in West Palm Beach) inspect the truck and take it
for a spin. I technically could have backed out of the deal as
I made it contingent upon my inspecting the truck in person, but
I would still have been out a one way plane ticket and would have
needed to find a way to get back home. :-)
The right CTD at the right price in the right location is
an elusive beast indeed! Even though I am happy with my
truck, I did end up settling for an automatic over the stick,
and 2wd over 4wd and I paid a tad more than I had been
planning, but only because the truck was super clean and had
just over 20,000 miles on the clock - not even broken in, for a
CTD. :-) I figured that was probably worth a few extra bucks.
Besides the fact that its an automatic and therefore not
the HO motor, the only other thing that I am somewhat less
than enthused about is the 4.10 rear. Sure, it'll tow your house
down the road at idle, but on the highway, I'm really only
comfortable cruising at speeds up to about 70mph. The Cummins is
NOT a rev-happy motor. :-) Its turning around 2200 rpms or so
at 70, but it feels and sounds like cruising at 4,000 in a gasser.
I'm not sure if it bugs me enough to change the gears or not,
but its something I might do at some point. Anyway, if possible
I would recommend going with the 3.55 or so if you plan to spend
a lot of time with it on the highway. With the engine's torque,
the gears probably don't matter as much as they might on a
gasser anyway. :-)
--
-Jon-
.-- Jon Steiger ---- jon@dakota-truck.net or jon@jonsteiger.com --.
| 1970 Barracuda - 1990 Dakota 'vert - 1992 Ram 4x4 - 1996 Dakota |
| 1996 Intruder 1400 - 1996 Kolb FireFly - 2001 Ram QC 3500 CTD |
`------------------------------------ http://www.jonsteiger.com --'
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