[mrmossyone]

I agree w/ you REDNAK except on money savings for gas w/ Deisel vs.gasser. My Hemi gets 12-12.4 towing and your deisel gets 15.
10,000 divided by 12 is 833.3 gallons at 2.80 that is 2,333.32. 10,000divided by 15 is 666.6 gallons at 3.40 that is 2,266.66. That's a 66.66 dollar savings. I get 12.6 mpg in town and 17..2-17.6 on highway( I put an exhaust and tuner on).

Now I paid 11,000 dollars for my 2004 3/4 4 door Ram w/hemi w/ 11,000 miles on it(I got a good deal). I did a few upgrades so I have 12,000 total investment. Any Ram deisel w/ anywhere near that low mileage was at least 10,000 dollars more. Even if I didn't get such a great deal the deisel is at least 7,000 dollars more. At one million miles on your deisel you will have saved 6,666 dollars in fuel if we only considered towing miles, I'll give you another 50% savings for non-towing city and highway miles which is very, very generous. So you would still have to keep your truck for at least 500,000 miles to equal my value on the Hemi. As far as value goes I think my hemi gasser has you beat.

Granted this decision will be effected by what you tow and where. I had absolutely no need for a deisel as my camper weighs in at about 3400-3500 lbs and most of my towing isn't in the mountains.

As for longevity a gasser can last almost as long as a deisel if well maintained. I sold my last Dodge w/ 318 a few months ago and it still ran great w/ 190,000 miles on it and it was worked hard for many years. It was a 1996 model. My Dad still has his 1997 model gasser that runs good , now he did have the tranny rebuilt at 120,000 miles but besides regular maintenance that was his only investment in it. The rebuild cost him 1700 dollars and he plans on driving the truck for another 10 years.

With the current cost of deisel and the current cost of buying a deisel truck vs. a gasser the gasser is the better value IMHO.