1996 Big 3 Dually Pickup Comparo | Retro Review 

7.3 ford is what I have and I love mine.

I just don't understand why they tested one diesel engine and two gas. The power stroke was good but the cummings that would have gone in that dodge have become just as popular over time.

+TX Camper there's one in my driveway. :)

+TX Camper today you get the boring 2 tone cheap cloth

or the swanky leather. who wants leather in their work truck?

Jay Groom fatsos who "work". cloth if you only drive, vinyl for dirty workers.

Vinyl was so good. I don't mind cloth but leather just seems wrong in a truck

Yeah i like to drive my truck... not the other way around

31k in 1996 is equivalent to ~48k in 2016... So they were not even "reasonably" priced back then.

better than 70k in 2016

i just watched a video on the new 87,000$ f350! nice truck but damn

^^^make that F250, has over 10 cameras...what!

Jacob D They're still cheap, if you like base models.

Yeah, they don't have stupid looking low pro tires and rims out past the fenders a foot with some pimple face kid "rolling coal" thinking he's cool !

Well yea they are brand new in this video😂🎉

lol those trucks could all tow double that but they gotta keep people buying new trucks because of more "towing capacity"

hedgehoghunter007 Sad i see people that work in construction with cars at the job site and people on the street that don't work in construction having pickups and to me that says allot ether they cant afford a new pickup or something else.

Um yes they did. My grandpa drove 89, 94, 97, 99 and 04 Dodge diesels all bought new no towing and I drove 99 Cummins and now a 2019 f250 diesel no towing. There are plenty of guys that put 250,000 miles on them no towing like grandpa and myself. Nothing wrong with buying what you like and using it how you like!

charger master A lot of construction guys I know make plenty to afford one but cannot because of personal financial decisions they’ve made that’s got them in a pit. Child support for their Unwed born kids, $10 a day in concessions at Speedway each day, $7 a day in cigarettes, $10 a day in Miller lite, payday loans, lottery ...it goes on and on!! Making $28 an hour and flat broke all the time driving a $1200 car!!

@@chargermaster586 so true I work in construction and I drive my car back and forth to work 90% of the time and I only drive my old 96 Chevy 4×4 when it snows. And I would say about 90% of the guys at the job sites I go to drive Cars to even if they have a truck.

@@natehawkins2910 the construction guys you now must be skilled labors not skilled Tradesman. I worked in the industry for 18 years now and I could easily afford a brand new Chevy Silverado but I don't because I'm smart I have a 1990 Oldsmobile Cutlass with 90000 MI and a 96 Chevy with 155000 MI and I also have zero debt income ratio me and the old lady live extremely comfortable no bills it's great. Same goes for the skilled Tradesman I know electricians plumbers Etc.

I can only imagine seeing you jump out the seat and sprint to the truck with the face of 😲😱

@@MarloSoBalJr That's pretty much how it went!

I saw that and wondered if the SD did that...

I didn't know until I read your comment....running out right now to check mine

That is really funny!

Aaron Fink Speaking of adjusting for inflation, my 1996 Grand Cherokee Laredo 5.2V8 went for $32k brand new, just under $50k today. Overall, the differences between then and now when similarly equipped isn't all that bad.

do the math now, last ton dually brand new i looked at was $109,000 CAD

The high end is MUCH higher now.

A dually is kind of a luxury these days. Farming like many other industries has been conglomerated. So feed and crops are hauled and delivered by dedicated otr drivers. If you have a dude ranch chances are you are rich. Now if you have a small landscaping/handyman business chances are smart enough to keep an old truck running. Old trucks are still really good. Take a 2005 f150, install an Android stereo with usb power ports, +backup camera $300, power inverter $50, Bedlight $40.

You're missing some points however. 1. Economies of scale mean that with the much higher production figures of today the cost is lower, but the sale prices "inflation adjusted" are slightly higher like you said. 2. The high-trim versions, while exuberantley more luxurious, have a much higher profit margin than back in the days. You couldn't get a 1500 pickup up to over 60k or a 3500 dually to over 90k or its equivalent back then.

7.4L*

I love turning the key on my '95 7.3 😁

@@JoshuaTootell me too. I just got my 97 back. I've missed it dearly.

Nothing beats the sound of a 5.9 Cummins

the Cummins sounds like every other inline 6 with a turbo. A frickin ford 300 with a turbo sounds exactly like it. It is the most generic engine sound you can get.

Also on a thread about how much we love the sound of the 7.3 you had to be that douche to mention the Cummins for absolutely no reason. Why are all Cummins owners either douchebags or inbreds.

They were heavily featured in Dodge promotional videos and material !

The only other car i have seen that in was my 81 cadillac seville elegante!

Yup. IMHO it's the best body style of the F-series. It just doesn't age

Same, I’d love to go back to 1993-1994 & get a 7.3 IDIT CCLB with a 4x4 ZF5.

@@MarloSoBalJr lasted 17 years 1980-1997

@@chargermaster586 thats it? I love telling this story. We have a 1997 dodge ram with the 12 valve in it and it has 1.4 million miles and has hauled a skidsteer for more than half of those miles and is still running. Only on its 4th transmission xD

@@chargermaster586 Actually 1980 thru 1998. They redesigned the Ford super Duty for 1999. I have the original Car & Driver Magazine with the article

Bob Sagget I didn't even know and my dad has a 1992 F150.

I didn't know myself that it did that

Dang it I should’ve bought an extended cab if I’d known that

I didn’t know that and my dad drives a 93 bronco and a 96 F-350 crew cab dually.

Damn right😂

Hell ya it does I have that exact truck right down to the color had it for 8 years now and she's never let me down

This is still my favorite generation of the Ford.

Still looks good but never looked as good as a chevy.

@@slobaru7094 🤣 are you blind?

Bull Fucking Shit !!!

dellstudio10 that motor won't spin 4 in high range gfy

OH BABY

x2, we had a V10 for over 10 years. It would spin the tires on demand. People don't realize you have all that torque spread out over a wider contact patch on hard truck tires under and empty bed. Why is saying that it can spin the tires "Bull Fucking Shit !!!" ? - classy btw,.

boogts Maybe because the guy said it spun for 90 feet??? That is bullshit. We had two or three (can't remember) in our fleet. They were 1 ton, NON-dually trucks and would spin for about 10 to 15 whopping feet, hook and go. Have a real hard time thinking that almost DOUBLE the contact patch would equate more spin...

That's why they lasted longer. The less horsepower you make out of an engine, the more reliable it will be. It's why military Humvees have something like 180 HP.

Humvees only make that sort of power due to being designed many decades ago and having an N/A diesel under the hood. That's why they're being replaced. Also, that general statement isn't true about hp's inverse relation to reliability.

It took Ford forever to get back to making a diesel as good as the 7.3.

lost alot of good reliable vehicles because of the epa.

Cajunguy82 True. There are still some cherries, though. My '05 C-Class has just shy of half a million miles, all original internals. Just lucky, I suppose. ~45k miles/year.

My due respect mate you've said it how it is/was !! These F trucks from the 90's were baddest ass of them all !! I am nuts for a 93-95 F-150 XLT Flareside supercab MARK III up to today ever since I was a teenager back then in the 90's . Greetings from down under

And dated as hell....

+themosinkid95 dated but I still see late 80s early 90s ford trucks on job sites in much higher numbers than dodge or GM around here any way

Chevy was by far the best looking and you see more of those Chevys on the road than the other 2 put together !

mfnbigdaddy73 must be a regional thing. In central New York the few older trucks you see on job sites are old brick shaped Fords.

The Cummins was efficient and bulletproof, but stock for stock the V10 was the real monster if you could afford the gas. 450lb-ft right on the converter stall; huge trailers and huge hills were a joke. That engine had so much potential that the aftermarket never really saw fit to tap into. It was so understressed it made the V8 magnums look like VTEC Hondas. With some compression and headers and a cam it would be insane. But alas, the Cummins thoroughly stole the show.

Still does🔥🙌

Adjust for inflation these trucks are actually about the same as a new one. Not including the high trim of course

The V10s were durable too

My cousin’s work truck is an ‘01 Dodge with a V10 and 6 speed. Good rig for sure, but you can almost watch the gas gauge move…

Probably close to 800 pounds or better.

CommunityChrysler woow so light

Not as much as the 6cyl Cummins.

.89 cent gas in the1990s? Maybe the 1970s.

@@rickkowalske4116 I remember paying 90cent/gallon when I started driving and that was in 1998 I would get $20 for the week to pay for gas on my 1990Chevy truck with a 350v8 and lunch money :)

@@thomasnew8606 well I don't know where you live but in 1998 in Michigan gas was at least 1.50 a gallon.gas hasn't been below a dollar a gallon here since the 1970s unless a limited promotion

@@rickkowalske4116 I started driving in Bartlesville Oklahoma (North near the Kansas border). Even after that I remember paying under $1 in Texas when driving to Houston.

@@thomasnew8606 you guys have all the refineries down there.we pay for all that transportation distance

To be fair, that's a lot of weight to be moving around. Definitely enough to pull most 5th wheels, which is what a dually truck excels at

@@isaakwelch3451 agree with you 100%!! Alot of these commenters on here are green and still wet behind the ears.

@@thedesertdwellerfromutah4354 my 73 international is rated at 9k gvwr which is going to be more than enough for me. All the towing and pulling I'm going to do is old cars and trucks and I can't imagine needing to move something heavy enough to exceed that

Yep my 19’ Ram 1/2 ton tows 11,700 lbs.

@@isaakwelch3451 Would love to find me a nice IH pickup truck

Me too 🙌

I want one too except in Cheyenne trim, a regular cab version is for sale across the street from playing coffee shop in town lol, along with an extended cab 2000 Silverado 1500

I've owned 4 of those 90s GM trucks. Have yet to own a crew cab or a 454 but I might be building one this year!

Update to anyone seeing this regarding my previous comment from the year before, I have a 96 crew cab chevy now and currently building a cummins for it

I know right! Fords new diesel has twice the torque as the old 7.3. Crazy

Racing Slippers You can double the output on the old 7.3 with injectors and a tune.

Martin Espinoza oh I know, just comparing stock vs stock

Martin Espinoza sounds great :) Cheers

I love this Chevy C3500 Crew cab,

Ugly As Fuck like a beast from Beauty and the Beast....LMAO

@mfnbigdaddy73 Damn you gay

mfnbigdaddy73 You on everybody's post bashing the Ford. Nobody Care you think that pos gm looks good. The OSB Ford looks the best. Stop hating and move on...

Angel Crisostomo as an old GM fan... Hell yes! Ford is awesome! The obs Chevy looks tough as well

P Pha I think a base ford f 350 is around 30k

+jump oricakle wow not any more now it's 50k to 60k

billy heaton you can get a base model for 30k or close to it. adding options and trim levels can more than double the price though.

***** You are talking about a work truck lol

billy heaton you bet. using a f-350 as you daily is not very smart if you ask me.

I agree mine too.

Robert Baratheon By far the worst mileage. My brother had one.

The V10 does get poor mileage, but I'm a Mopar lover, so the I would take it over the Ford or Chevy anytime.

It is a beast and a half, that's for sure.

Robert Baratheon get a dodge with the 5.9 cummims but i like my 7.3 idi.

Yea that would be cool

Nathan McDonald Yeah the Ford trucks basically didn't change from 1980-1996, just front end and interior redesigning to keep it fresh. why change a good thing? everyone loved the square fords. the new f-150 replacing them however is renowned as a piece of crap.

wll1500 - I wouldn't go as far as to call the 1997 - 2003 F-150's piece's of crap, but they are certainly my least favorite body style of truck Ford ever produced. I was glad they went back to a more square look in 2004 model year.

wll1500 the new f150 is still the best truck by quite a bit.

Yeah... And when you pull that 10-12k with a newer truck more often then once or twice a week they fall apart, makes me wonder if that's why everyone buys a diesel still today to do any real pulling, or even an older Cummins or powerstroke? Makes you think. Tin can trucks of today aren't built for anything other than bravado. Just because your sister can sometimes lift 200lbs, doesn't mean you should do it. Now the slower weight lifter....yeah he's my bet.

Unless they had internets, they did not have many options to get auto information. It was tv or magazines.

@@4jp This is true. Even though the commercial internet was alive and kicking back in '96, it was slim pickings for full automotive reviews. Usually only got text snippets through the main magazine editors, at best. Video reviews were unheard of as most computers couldn't even stream video bigger than a postage stamp size pixelated format and even those were not common.

Gavin Smith thinking the same thing

Gavin Smith try it and tell me if it does lol

Jonathan Montes it does!

Gavin Smith oh wow

Dope isn't it 😂 took me 8 months to figure it out

Well this is a 25 year old presentation lol.

MotorWeek is still the gold standard of car shows. No-nonsense, straight to the point descriptions and accurate, objective testing.

Because the Chevys 6.5 diesel sucked ass back then. Most 90s one ton chevys are 454s which are great in their own right, but I imagine the ford and dodge outsold Chevy at that time in that segment simply due to having great diesels in them, lasting longer leading to more being on the road today

They didn't even need a 7.3 powerstroke to tow that.

+Alex S haha towing over 100,000 lbs with today's trucks??? What are you smoking? First of all, their frames/axles/tires are going to be a huuuuge limiting factor in that and would be waaaay exceeding the GRVW. Second of all, my class 8 semi truck with 450 hp and 1650 lb-ft of torque takes about 1.5 - 2 minutes to get up to 60mph moving a total of 80,000 lbs (45,000 cargo, 15,000 empty dry van, 20,000 tractor). Heavy haul applications with tag axles that are pulling just over 100,000 lbs total usually have ~550 hp and 2,000-2,200 lb-ft of torque. You're saying that a little puny pickup with less than half that torque is going to pull the same weight?? GTFOH. And you're talking about 6 cylinders like they're not the right size for the job... you clearly don't know anything about the 15L engines that are in semi's today... guess what? They're all 6 cylinders!!

@@lexusls Did you even fucking read Alex S's comment? He basically already said that the axles and shit are limiting factors.

@@lexusls yes if I put my k2500 in 4 low granny 1st I can seriously move some metal

@@DanglingDingleBerry Maybe he did, but he didn't tow that way legally. If he ever got pulled over by a cop for pulling that much weight with a truck factory rated for 1/3rd of that, my guess is he'd have been ticketed pretty quickly.

They're reliable AF aswell, my uncle has a ram 1500, odometer quit on us 5 years ago, it's still his daily and the truck don't seem to care it has an unknown amount of miles on it

@@cpufreak101 I have a 98 dodge ram 1500 going with 281K miles.

@@ffhjvbuydb78eb '96 2500 5.9 425,000 miles

@@SquirminHermanthe1eyedGerman what have you replace? The whole truck?

@@ffhjvbuydb78eb usual stuff...battery, belts, plugs, tires etc! I maintain all my vehicles regularly & they all pretty much still look new! My Ram has all those miles pulling a 16ft landscaping trailer including 2 zero turns, push mowers, weedeaters, chainsaws etc fully loaded with equipment for 25 years & has never even left me stranded on the side of the road! I still use a 1987 Chevy S10 regularly & a 1994 Dakota Sport extended cab with the 5.2 318 & it has 280K & has been very reliable! My grandpa was a MOPAR salesman from 1946-1977 so I grew up on them & every Chrysler/Plymouth/Dodge/Jeep I have owned has been a damn good vehicle, guess I just got lucky & never had a lemon plus I do keep my cars up running & looking good...you should see my Bandit Trans Am & '78 gold Ttop Z28 that are pristine!

I see the dodge more tbh

SuperSonic2324 YT those are probably the Cummins still in the shipping container

I personally think the pick-ups made today are really fascinating. Vastly improved aerodynamics. Sports car performance and luxury interiors. I always thought the 80s to mid 90s Ford Super duty styling was terribly out of date. When they redesigned it in 1999, it was a such a drastic improvement. When they redesigned the F-150 in 1996, they should have used that body style for the Super duty line, it would have had so much more appeal and they would probably have made 3 times the amount of sales.

@@milestone_achiever4634 fords 1990s design is atleast better than a 1993 ram lol

@@chicken_man9802 your insane

@@milestone_achiever4634 trucks today shouldn't even be considered trucks lol all they do is mall crawl not to mention everything is uni-body junk

@@rdr9519 not true. All of the newest full size pickup trucks are still body on frame. They use a hydro-formed steel as apposed to the traditional carbon steel . The advantage is next to none rust and corrosion

You got the best truck of all, then.

and see the bag phone at 2:15

and while all of these new computer controlled turds are in the junkyard, the old 80's and 90's trucks will still be out there working..

As said in the video the average american was starting to buy these trucks as daily drivers. With that onset all three big manufacturers started building trucks for the average american who had very different needs than us working class citizens. And then the price went up up up so did horsepower and torque and working reliability was put on the back burner and then completely forgotten. High numbers that sacrifice reliability and luxuries costing a fortune have destroyed any real value pickups once had.

Bullshit. My 7.3 IDI died the death of cavitation because the cylinder walls are too thin. Opened up the oil drain valve and got out coolant. Now I have to either cummins swap or find a 6.9 donor because I am not going through that again

I never said they didn't have problems. Yes the 7.3 idi is notorious for cavitation, if you had done cursory research on them like any sensible person you could have prevented the problem by adding anti cavitation fluids. I never said that a truck would last for an idiot who didn't do some googling on basic information to take care of his stuff.

Yeah cause the dash is the only thing that falls apart on those

Ours never fell apart. It’s a 1994 so it’s surprising because it was also my dads daily driver for 20 years

@@chicken_man9802 then you got lucky the only thing a dodge truck is good for is being a shipping container for the Cummins engine. Pull it out and junk the rest

@@sinclaircupcake4954 nah, my mom uses it for horse shows now and we are gonna use the truck until it dies because we went on so many road trips and fishing and camping, it would be like crushing memories with my family

Careful, you're going to trigger all the "good old days" people 😉

I bet that one ton Chevy would handle the weight a lot better then a 1/2 ton.

@@FlaKBuS not a chance, trailer brake assist and discs is the adavntage, dont need to worry as much about making it go as you do making it stop. Id trust a new half ton with 15k pounds over a 95 1 ton with 10k. Old trucks might last longer but the new one will always perform better

@@billyray4716 Yea let me know how well your half ton suspension does towing 15k. I will agree that the new trucks have a lot more power and technology in them however for some people it’s about how well a truck handles the load and I’m sorry but I’d be willing to put more weight on a 95 dually Chevy over a new half ton based on suspension alone.

@@FlaKBuS thats fair i didnt think about suspension. Id personally do a disc conversion on this generation of ford for a tow rig, but in California this generation of truck is more expensive than a new one in good condition

Cigarette windows.

@@Bartonovich52 Cool windows

I still call them opening rear windows beer windows too.

Nothing like that cool stream of air right to your crotch

Alex Dean wing window

Also the fact the truck beds are taller than anyone less than 6ft tall the metal is thin and they would never handle the testing in the old commercial I don't plan on buying a newer truck I have my 1983 d250 ram and my 1997 2500 v10 I rarely drive now due to gas prices but I love my behemoth

No joke. Took me two years to find mine.

Me too. I have the ford. Next I need to get a gmc. The dodge is the hard one to get. The never made a full crew cab 2nd gen from factory, only conversions.

the new ones aren't worth the $30K+ They won't look this good 24yrs down the road.

I've got a 97 F-350 Single Rear Wheel w/ 7.3 It doesn't quit at 530k miles

Yeah they are. I used to have a 95 and miss it. Gotta find another one some day

Fuckin Ugly

Stefan Unson that's really interesting. Nobody ever really thinks about that.

true but the Ford is bushing BOTH capability AND luxury so the price your coming up with isn't apples to apples

Stefan Unson f450?

Stefan Unson those are still fairly optioned half ton prices. Base model bare bones 1 tons still cost 35k

There's still thousands of 2nd-gen Rams all over the place here. My dad had one until just about a year ago, when he decided that it made sense to keep the 1977 Dodge and sell the 98.

You hit the nail on the head, I see more old Fords both gas and diesel than anything. Old Chevy's aren't terribly uncommon either, but its like seeing a unicorn if you spot a Dodge older than 15 years old still on the road.

I dont, I lost some hearing from those in the ambulances I drove.

Bigmatt 503 pathetic actually

A turbo 7.3 with 200hp is pretty sad too

Diesels have a valid reason to producing low horsepower. They aren't meant to rev. All the torque is down low, very low, which is ideal for towing. And as indicated in this video, it got essentially twice the gas mileage as the others.

It might seem so, but the engines, and more importantly the computers controling them, were tuned for hard, long hours of work. Low, very low RPM shift points(like 3000 RPM even when you "floor it") with cam profiles and other tuning to maximize "grunt" power to get big loads moving from a stop while still providing passable MPG for the time, all while running cool under extreme workload, and haveing subastantial durability are what contributed to the low HP numbers. Factor in archaic automatic transmission technology based off of transmissions from the 70's and it becomes obvious why they didn;t tune the big gassers to their potential. Both the 454, and 460 gas engines(Ford and GM) could easily be heads/cam swapped and converted to carb.(to get rid of computer limitations of the time) and boosted by over 100HP without even changing the redline on the tach. They didn;t come from the factory that way because of durability issues, but also because these trucks were towing more then any pickup had ever done before at that time so there just wasn't a need. When the Ford 7.3 turbo hit the scene, the stuff farmers and contractors were doing/towing with a regular cab/regular box 7.3 F250 was making mouths drop open. The entire "big work truck" scene was drastically changing in the early/mid 90's.

droidrazor873 not at all. Makes torque down low just like a diesel and doesn’t rev very high either. It’s as though they aren’t trying at all when towing.

Back then trucks hardly changed Body Styles, GM had their square body from 73 thru 87, 91 if you count their SUVs, while Dodge went from 72-93 with theirs. These days you get at least 5 years.

+keri ellerbe considering the movie came out in 1996, I find that a dubious claim.

Well when they started making the movie the truck was newly available... Just cause it Was released in 96 don't mean jack...Thanks

It was still newly available, but the production team chose it because it was so new, and because it was already wildly popular. It may have helped boost the sales, but the truck had already taken off.

+Jacksonkellyfreak "taken off" no pun intended.

And don't forget Walker Texas Ranger, I think that and twister as well

It also displaced more and revs to 4K?

I agree

V10 had more low end torque and nearly twice the horsepower, definitely needed it to compete with a 454 and 7.3

Billy Ray nah, just give me 20 mins alone with the AFC Housing on the injector pump and the 5.9 Cummins would run circles around the Big Block Chevrolet and the 7.3 Powerstroke, well as long as it was to have the NV4500 trans behind it instead of the 47RH. But this would only be fair because we all know a bone stock 12 valve Cummins isn't going anywhere. And really a bone stock 7.3 OBS isn't much better, especially with an auto trans.

@@billyray4716 5.9 Cummins was a way better engine than the 7.3

@@duallygang2329 not stock. Cummins is a status thing, 6.6 and 7.3 are eons ahead, cummins are cool guy engines

to be fair, the 30k rating is for gooseneck on some properly equipped models conventional towing like shown in the video is still somewhere around 12k to 12k

babiixoxbritty idk I have the 4.9 I6 in my F-150 and it's a beast will not die

You're both right, just in different vehicle design capability classes. Though despite being 95% Ford loyal for the last 20 years, (there was one beater Honda stop-gap in there) I have to recognize the tried and true classic OHV 350ci/5.7L SBC for its trustiness. I feel that the non-Triton 2v Modular 281ci/4.6L, while gutless, deserves an honorable mention as well.

Fenrir Slakter dodge is notorious for having shitty transmissions unfortunately

@@1S1KC0DM4N honestly out of them I'd take a 6.0 bulletproofed

The Ford V-10 is stone cold reliable!

I'm a Chevy man but those 7.3 power strokes sound great. They are the true definition of a real diesel

+Gamer All901 agreed, hell in even thinking of pulling a Haggard garage and finding an E series with one lol

Justin Noker I have a nice E series with the 7.3, one of the last ones probably as it's an early 2003 and iirc they switched to the 6.0 by late 03

id gladly take a vortec 454 instead....better yet the 8.1