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1 hour ago, Bnsfengineer2014 said:

We are just trying to figure out if the gas will be a better fit or a diesel. The fifth wheel will be a better pull my question would be fuel mileage

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1 hour ago, AlexMartin said:

I am very interested in your results with pulling that 14k 5th wheel.  Please let us know how that goes for you!

Going on a short trip this weekend, split between interstate and 2-lane roads. Will let you know the results. I'm thinking it may be close to same as TT as the reduction in MPGs is more from wind resistance than weight. The 5er is of course taller, so there is that.

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My first fifth wheel trip will likely be around thanksgiving, unless I can sneak away from the wife to the lake before full on winter is here.  Thus far I did a quick 40 mile round trip with the fifth wheel and saw around 10.4mpg.  Unloaded on highway I'm seeing 19.5-20.5 consistently.  Definitely better mileage than my previous L5P and LMLs, and of course much better mileage than my 2017 powerstroke.

 

Attached picture was a 750 mile unloaded trip about 3 weeks ago, pretty good!

2020mileage.jpg

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If you are just towing the camper a few hundred miles a year the Duramax will never pay itself off. Not to mention the added downtime from aftertreatment issues. Most K2 Duramax owners I know deleted theirs because of problems, the main reason my last 3 2500's purchased were gas jobs. If you're pulling 14k+, yeah you need it. Curious to see how the new 6.6L gas with 3.73 gears compared to the 6.0L with 4.10's. I am at 10.7us mpg lifetime on my 2018 K2 2500 with 25,000 miles, 5,000 towing sub-10K #'s on a deckover. I would expect the new gas engine to be similar or slightly better with the taller gears.  

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If you are just towing the camper a few hundred miles a year the Duramax will never pay itself off. Not to mention the added downtime from aftertreatment issues. Most K2 Duramax owners I know deleted theirs because of problems, the main reason my last 3 2500's purchased were gas jobs. If you're pulling 14k+, yeah you need it. Curious to see how the new 6.6L gas with 3.73 gears compared to the 6.0L with 4.10's. I am at 10.7us mpg lifetime on my 2018 K2 2500 with 25,000 miles, 5,000 towing sub-10K #'s on a deckover. I would expect the new gas engine to be similar or slightly better with the taller gears.  
We don't just want to pull it a couple 100 miles a year we want to make some along trips like the east coast montana Wyoming mountains and such so would the duramax be worth it

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We pull/camp 8-10 times a year and most of that is in flatland and rolling hills. Maybe once a year to the Appalachian Mountains. If we were in the mountains more, I may have considered another diesel, but no more often that we tow, I went with gas. My F250 had the 6.2 and did great in the mountains, so I have no doubt the GM 6.6 will be fine. At least I certainly hope so. If I worked the diesel more or didn't have so many short (<5 miles) trips, it may be different. The extra equipment on modern diesels and the fuel restrictions, etc are truly hurting the industry. Many farmers already loathe the DPF and such on their tractors and doing regens, etc. Yes, the diesels get better economy on the highway and when pulling, but slower, stop/go, everyday town trips are better with gas. All boils down to the usage. Can't go wrong either way. Best of luck in your decision.

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16 hours ago, Bnsfengineer2014 said:

We don't just want to pull it a couple 100 miles a year we want to make some along trips like the east coast montana Wyoming mountains and such so would the duramax be worth it

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You're going to get 8-10mpg with the 6.6L gas if you're towing a bigger travel trailer. Many Dmax owners are reporting 10-14mpg while towing around 10k. Calculate your trip mileage, it that's a 2000 mile journey, you would burn 200-250 gal with the gas truck and 150-175 gal for the Dmax. $2.65/gal for gas and $3/gal for diesel. You would be $530-$662.50 for gas or $450-$525 for diesel. Lets use the low end for our calculation, you would spend $80 less in total on your trip by going for the Duramax engine. Not sure how much the Dmax is in USA but here its close to a $12,000 option, so we will call it $8k in the USA until someone can give me a more accurate figure, So with the Duramax option costing $8,000usd extra, it will take you ten 2,000 mile camping trips, or 20,000 towing miles to pay off that option. I would assume you would do this trip once a year at most, do you keep your trucks for 12 years to make it worth while? 

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You're going to get 8-10mpg with the 6.6L gas if you're towing a bigger travel trailer. Many Dmax owners are reporting 10-14mpg while towing around 10k. Calculate your trip mileage, it that's a 2000 mile journey, you would burn 200-250 gal with the gas truck and 150-175 gal for the Dmax. $2.65/gal for gas and $3/gal for diesel. You would be $530-$662.50 for gas or $450-$525 for diesel. Lets use the low end for our calculation, you would spend $80 less in total on your trip by going for the Duramax engine. Not sure how much the Dmax is in USA but here its close to a $12,000 option, so we will call it $8k in the USA until someone can give me a more accurate figure, So with the Duramax option costing $8,000usd extra, it will take you ten 2,000 mile camping trips, or 20,000 towing miles to pay off that option. I would assume you would do this trip once a year at most, do you keep your trucks for 12 years to make it worth while? 
My plan is to keep it until the wheels fall off

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19 hours ago, Bnsfengineer2014 said:

My plan is to keep it until the wheels fall off

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Sounds like you made your decision. It will tow your trailer much nicer. It will take time to pay off that Dmax, but it will eventually and your resale should be a bit higher as well. 

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Went on our journey this afternoon. Had a 10 minute stop for paving going on, but still made it about 2 hours from home. Average 7.4 mpg, which was actually better than I expected, even with sitting still over 10 mins. The TT was around 8.5, much shorter and lighter. Truck pulled it great up and down hills and was very stable.

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13 hours ago, L86 All Terrain said:

Sounds like you made your decision. It will tow your trailer much nicer. It will take time to pay off that Dmax, but it will eventually and your resale should be a bit higher as well. 

A bit higher?  Yes a Duramax costs $10K but on trade I got $8.5K more than I would have had it been a gas truck. Doesn’t take a lot of time or mileage to make up that small difference. 

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On 10/18/2019 at 9:45 PM, AT4 HD Ron said:

A bit higher?  Yes a Duramax costs $10K but on trade I got $8.5K more than I would have had it been a gas truck. Doesn’t take a lot of time or mileage to make up that small difference. 

Great news Ron. Convenient that they told you your trade in price of a comparable 6.0L as well as your Duramax. 

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On 10/18/2019 at 9:45 PM, AT4 HD Ron said:

A bit higher?  Yes a Duramax costs $10K but on trade I got $8.5K more than I would have had it been a gas truck. Doesn’t take a lot of time or mileage to make up that small difference. 

This is an interesting point, and made me curious about total cost of ownership. 

 

I typically keep my trucks for about 4 years and put about 80,000 miles on them.  So I looked up KBB values (not always accurate but typically a pretty good ballpark for trade in value) for a 2015 2500 Silverado 4WD crew LT with 80k miles and with identical options and compared the gas/diesel.  KBB had the gas trade value at $23,545 and the diesel at $29,800.  With a sale price of $47,000 for the gas and $56,500 for the diesel then my cost for the vehicles would be $23,455 gas and $26,700 diesel.  Gas truck retained 50% percent of sale value and diesel retained 53%  So, negating the difference in interest charges, the diesel would cost $3,245 more over those 4 years.

 

Now, the diesel will certainly get better fuel mileage but fuel also cost more so how will that work out?

 

80k miles / 11.5 mpg = 6,956 gallons X $2.29 per gallon= $15,929 total fuel cost gasoline

80k miles/ 14.5 mpg =  5,517 gallons X $2.70 per gallon = $14,895 total fuel cost diesel

 

So, total cost for ownership for each vehicle

net vehicle cost $23,455 + fuel cost $15,929 = $39,384 vortec

net vehicle cost $ 26,700 = fuel cost $ 14,895 = $41,595 duramax

difference of $2,211

 

Oil changes, maintenance, DEF were excluded but would also add to the cost of the duramax.  I may come back later and try to add this in because i think these might add up to more significance than I originally thought they would.

 

My takeaways: 

1)If the gas engine meets my towing needs/wants then there is no need to buy the diesel

2)the increase in fuel price almost completely negates any difference in fuel efficiency for the diesel.

3)with only a $2,200 difference over 4 years I would likely just pick whichever one I want 

 

I ended up choosing to buy a 2020 gasser.  My personal two main reasons were weight and costs.  hopefully this new 6.6 will have better fuel mileage and will push the economic advantage out further to the gasoline engine.

 

trade in prices from KBB

sale prices from an average of listings on autotrader

gas prices from AAA gas prices TX averages

MPG averages are from fuelly.com

 

I'm bracing myself for the "my vortec gets 17mpg" and the "I only paid $30,000 for my duramax" comments.  I realize there are a ton of variables, but I was interested in this and applied the best objective info i could find for my particular scenario.  

 

 

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Based on a recent Ontario to Colorado run, relative fuel costs depends on the area.

Perhaps due in part to the way they are taxed.

 

Lots of places there is no cost penalty for diesel -- and some places it might be cheaper than regular. 

 

'Here' the cost of both fluctuate and often diesel is cheaper than regular.

 

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