Buying a used vehicle can be a risky task. You never really know if you are buying a good vehicle or if someone is handing off their problematic vehicle to you. Before I get into the list of what vehicles I recommend, with my 30 years of experience doing auto repair, I would like to share some tips with you on how to better your odds of finding a good used truck, regardless of which make and model you choose.
➔ If you only listen to one piece of advice out of the whole list I am going to give you, please listen very closely to this section.
Never buy a vehicle without performing an extended test drive. Extended test drive being at least 20 miles. Drive it in stop and go city driving and get it out on the freeway for higher speed driving. Pay attention while driving for abnormal noises, feelings, smells or warnings.
Whenever possible, once you have test driven the vehicle that you feel is the one, schedule it with the mechanic you trust to have a thorough pre purchase inspection done on it. Have them connect a scanner to it and check all the readiness monitors. Did you know that there is evidence left behind when people have recently cleared a check engine light? Once a warning light has been reset, all vehicles 96 and newer have to have a couple drive cycles to reset the readiness monitors and be ready for an emissions test. If your mechanic scans the modules and finds any of the monitors in not ready status, the seller better have a very good reason of why. Have your mechanic perform a thorough visual inspection. Check all fluids, check steering and suspension, measure brakes and tires, inspect for leaks, inspect for poorly repair collision damage. Have them drive it to monitor for any concerns. I am not going to lie, arranging to take the vehicle you want to purchase in for a pre purchase inspection is a real pain in the butt, but I promise you, if you saw what I have seen over the last 30 years, you would understand why it is worth the hassle. I have saved more of my clients than I can count from buying someone else’s lemon on multiple occasions. Then on the vehicles that just need some things but can still be a good vehicle, you can take my list of findings to the seller to use as a bargaining tool.
➔ Ok, I will stop “dadding” all of you now and get into what used trucks I would recommend. There are a lot of factors that make it very difficult for me to narrow down this list based on what your budget is. So for sake of argument, let’s talk about trucks that are in the $20k to $30k range. We are in Utah where we get a lot of snow on our roads in the winter so I would say 90% of the trucks here are 4wd. $20k to $30k for a 4wd truck around here right now generally gets you into about a 6 to 10 year old truck. So let’s talk about half ton 4wd trucks built in the 2010’s with gasoline engines for now. Diesel trucks are a totally different conversation that we will save for another day. So I am going to give you my opinion on what to buy, comparing the Chevy Silverado, Ford F150, Ram 1500, Toyota Tundra and Nissan Titan.
I am only going to rank these trucks based on reliability and common failures only. I am not going to factor in features, how nice they are to drive or anything like that. This is just information to hopefully help you make a more educated financial decision.
➔ Coming in dead last for reliability with the highest number of common failures is the Ford F150. This one pains me to list in last place because honestly, I am a Ford guy. If I could choose any truck to drive based on looks and how nice it drives, F150 would be first. I had one for a while and loved to drive it, but after 3 major failures at the 40k mile range, is sent that dang thing to live with someone else. Ford utilizes an Eco Boost engine that is either a 2.7l v6 or 3.5l v6. They put twin turbos on it to build the power needed. These trucks run great with plenty of power while also getting decent fuel economy, but anything turbo charged is going to break more often. The Eco Boost comes with a lot of common failures.
Here are a few of them just to name the extremely common:
Outside of the engine problems, this year range of F150 also have common transmission problems and front differential/ 4wd problems.
➔ Coming next at the bottom of the list for reliability is the Ram 1500. For instance, the 2014 Ram 1500 has had 17 recalls. The nice thing is Ram recognizes the problem and remedies it but what a pain in the butt. Common expensive repairs we see most days in our shop are exhaust and engine related. The exhaust manifolds fail very commonly on the rams and is an expensive repair if you replace them and extract the bolts that break during the replacement. Most Ram 1500’s have the 5.7l hemi. This engine comes into our shop quite often for us to diagnose misfires. Sometimes it is just a simple tune-up or ignition coil replacement, but it is also very common for the camshaft and lifters to fail or a valve in the cylinder head to fail. This leads to a very extensive engine overhaul that costs a good amount of money.
➔ Coming in mid pack is the Chevrolet Silverado. These are the most reliable domestic half tons we see coming in but they still have their issues. The good thing about the Silverado is that most of the failures are minor in comparison to the major engine flaws in the F150 and Ram. The weak link on the Silverado’s is the transmission. We see a lot of shifting issues and transmission failures on the Silverado’s. Outside of that, the other common failures are usually related to the fuel system. Chevy trucks have had fuel pump failures for many years now. It is better but still more common than Ford and Ram.
➔ This was a tough one for me to chose but in second place, I put the Nissan Titan. These are actually a pretty good truck. They run great but eat a lot of fuel. The most common failures we see with the Nissan Titan have to do with the front differential and the exhaust manifolds. We replace a lot of front differentials on them due to a design flaw that takes out the bearings that hold the front axle stubs in place. We have also replaced a good number of exhaust manifolds due to them cracking and causing a leak. The front differential replacement cost isn’t great, but it is not too bad. The exhaust manifolds are spendy because the catalytic converters are built into them. Overall, though, the rest of the truck holds up really good. They are not too common around here in comparison to the other trucks on the list. Maybe that is why it ranked so high is because I just simply don’t see them as often to count up the failures.
➔ Coming in 1st place is the good old Toyota Tundra. Technically the Tundra could be classified as a ¾ ton truck but in my mind you would buy a Tundra to do similar things that you would use the half ton Ford, Chevy and Dodge for. There are simply not a lot of common expensive failures on the Toyota Tundra’s. The occasional misfire caused by an ignition coil or sensor, but nothing too crazy.
Now I know that ranking these trucks in this order may cause a lot of people to disagree with me based on different data points that I didn’t take into consideration. The advice I give and opinions I share with you though are the same as if a family member, friend or client came to me and asked what truck they should buy. I give them this similar spill and then tell them to make sure they bring whatever they chose to me before they buy it.
I hope this helps. If you are local in Utah, reach out to us. Otherwise, hit us up in the comments if we can help in any way.
