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Originally Posted by askibum02  I am looking at buying an Excursion to tow my boat. I have a Dodge Ram 1500 Hemi that just isn't cutting it as far as towing is concerned. The boat weighs about 8500# loaded on the trailer. It pulls it fine, but the rear end porposes a lot and also sways a lot. Braking is marginal at best even with trailer brakes. I mainly tow locally about 1 time a month to fill up the gas on land, though I do want to do longer range towing(MD to NC or FL), which is why the question has come up. The two I have looked at are an '02 Limited 7.3L PSD with about 112K miles and a Triton V-10 with about 67K miles. The V-10 is a $2000 cheaper, they are both in about the same condition body and interior wise.
How much life can I expect from a V-10? I'm not worried about the diesel having high milage because it doesn't. The reason the V-10 has even entered the equation is because I don't drive my truck for anything but towing and short jaunts around town with the family. I have a beater VW that I drive to and from work. What kind of fuel econmoy can I expect from the V-10 towing that kind of load? The salesman I talked to said he has an F-250 with a V-10 and gets 6 city and 8 hwy, not towing.  That seems low. With my Ram I get about 12 mixed driving and 8 towing, but then again I drive with a heavy foot.  |
I own a 2002 Diesel Excursion and tow a 33 foot travel trailer when we go on vacations. It is awesome, tons of power. I tow up a mountain that takes 35 minutes to get to the summit and have to hit my brakes do to slow down due to slower cars! My friends that owned the V10 sold them and went diesel. If you want more power there is lots of options to crank it up with the Banks systems. I was thinking about selling mine and getting a duallie...my wife won't let me! She loves the diesel excursion. Keep the oil changed and it will outlast the V10 for sure.
