I noticed one thing all you guys who love diesels have in common...you all own old ones. Give a newer one a whirl. You might change your tune.
I've had:
- '84 Chevy 6.2L, bought in '85. As expected, the injection pump went out at a bit over 100k miles. No injection pumps to wear out now. Good torque but 135 HP rating LOL; no excavator towing up a mountain.
- '01 Ford 7.3L. The cam sensors went out regularly 'til International fixed that. More cold start problems than either Dodge Cummins
- '07 Dodge CTD. Common to have the injector harnesses go out at just past 100k miles
- And now a '16 Dodge CTD. The 2016 is the best of the bunch in terms of smoothness and capability. I've changed filters and oil and had one sensor fail under warranty; that has been the sum total maintenance for 86 k miles.
I've put 86k miles on it in 2.5 years..... towing 3-5 tons for 300-600 miles for jobs, mountains to cross over on every job. No way a current gas engine can do the same with so little effort. Towing a little camper is not at all the same thing.
BTW, the new sensor cost is not in the sensor so much as in the computer bus interface components. All cars/trucks, gas or diesel have gone this way, so it makes no difference. The sensor failures are common to all engines today..... TPS and O2 sensors fail in gas engines all the time. And there are delete kits out there for the stuff you may not want...
Paid $37k for the '07 new and $52k for the '16 new.... both Mega Cabs, mid level trim. These trucks pay for themselves in a few years because they make my work trips possible. At 35-40k miles per year, the longevity of the diesel under heavy loads over long distance is making financial sense for me. Fewer truck replacements over 15+ years. If I was not using for work, I'd buy an old truck LOL
Now since you are running crews in yours, then I may have to concede it to you to use gas engined trucks. With the crew use (abuse) I am sure they get, then the cheaper initial cost and repair cost may very well make sense. I knew one guy like you who had his crews stupidly put gasoline in his diesel pickups and blew them up. I am going to bet that your work is all within a small radius area and long haul issues are not as much of a factor. Oh, and I do my own vehicle repairs.... your $4-10k for a head gasket involved a lot more than replacing the head gasket, so, sorry, I have to call that particular cost BS.. OK, lets' call it 'incompletely described'.
You're making the mistake of spreading your vehicle use experience to all situations. It just does not hold up in every case like it does to your particular situation, as the below illustrates:
If I sold my '07 CTD right now, it would fetch over $15k and so would have cost me <$25k for depreciation + all engine related maintenance (1 injector, injector harness, + mostly oil changes is ALL of the engine maintenance I have done to it) for 217k miles, so about 12 cents per mile for the truck depreciation and engine. With a gas engine, the fuel costs would have been considerably higher for my use, the initial truck price minus the sell cost today would have been a bigger loss, so it would equivalently work out to at least 15 cents per mile, assuming the same low engine maintenance costs for the gas engine, the added fuel cost margin, and the same expenses for non-engine stuff. So you can see how your cost of ownership examples does not hold for all cases.
