Favorite pickup truck for comfort, reliability and rugged, in that order

In My Humble Opinion
1

Tell me about you favorite brand of pickup truck. I know nothing about them. Why the big price differences among brands?

2

While I’m a GM fan I’ve never found their pick ups to be comfortable, so I end up with Fords instead. GM always manages to mess up comfort features, no armrest, center consul on the bench seat without lid to close. Radio controls out of useful reach.

Toyota’s are pretty solid in all categories but they make you pay a premium for it. They do last but I don’t have the extra money to throw at them.

Anyone I know with a Dodge hasn’t been happy with the durability but comfort is good.

I like my Fords, they are cheap, reliable, and rugged. Comfort is what I expect in a truck, if you are comparing it to an SUV or a Sedan it would be sub par.

3

I haven’t shopped for one in several years, but I spent a couple of months studying the available brands before deciding. I would advise first making a detailed list of what capabilities you need from the truck, then narrowing down the choices online. FWIW: I have no brand loyalty, so I just chose from the results on the spreadsheet I compiled while shopping.

I test drove all the majors (Ford, Chevy, Dodge, Toyota, and Nissan) to check out the comfort levels. In my case I had very specific towing, GCWR, and bed-dimension requirements to fill, so it got narrowed down pretty quickly. I was only considering half-tons*, so the weight capabilities needed a careful look.

I learned the following (in no particular order):

  1. Salesmen have absolutely no idea of the specs or capabilities of their trucks. I had to find all the towing and axle specs online and do the math myself.

  2. Salesmen will balk when you try to test drive the vehicle outside their narrowly defined route. This has usually been scoped out for smoothness and ease, and my desire to take each truck both to my house, and to my storage lots (to test heights/etc against my trailers) raised objections in almost every case. None of this was very distant or offroad, btw.

  3. Most modern-day truck owners buy them only as fashion statements, and the manufacturers have responded by making them look “tough”. This is much to the detriment of those who want them for functional reasons. Actually using a pickup will require you to work around the needs of little boys in the suburbs who want really tall trucks. The few who might, you know, reach into the bed for tools and equipment quickly find modern pickups unusable without a stool or ladder.

  4. All manufacturers have decided I need to drive with my head shoved forward, looking down at my lap. And to accomplish this they’ve installed ridiculously intrusive headrests. Of the majors listed above, Ford and Chevy were the worst, with Dodge, Toyota and Nissan marginally acceptable. Part of my choice involved ease of removal of the headrests, and checking to see how difficult it would be to modify them.

  5. Chevy, Ford, and Toyota had the highest bed rails (most difficult to reach over). As i remember Ford was by far the worst, and using their truck would’ve required extensive modifications to one of my trailers to ensure the 5th wheel setup had adequate bed clearance. Dodge and Nissan were at a more sane height.

  6. Toyota had the deepest bed. This might be a feature for some, but it would’ve required extensive mods and welding to accommodate the kingpin (box) for my trailer. IIRC, Dodge had the shallowest (actually the same as all trucks a few decades ago).

  7. I use mine offroad and in 4WD frequently. All the manufacturers had good setups for that. All had hi/low/lock features adequate for most uses.

  8. Ride comfort: Dodge had coil springs in the rear, rather than leaf. IMO, they were hands-down the most comfortable ride.

  9. Towing capacity: Again, speaking only of half-tons; All were capable of at least 8000lbs, with the Dodge capable of a little over 10,000. My max load was 10K, so at this point my choice was sorta made for me.

Ruggedness and Reliability? I’m not sure about those. Personally I think all cars and trucks are amazingly reliable nowadays. Various testing publications rate them, and my choice (Dodge) was never favored. At my wife’s urging, I bought a lifetime, bumper-to-bumper-everything warranty so I don’t really worry about it. If something acts up I just drop it off at the dealer and let him worry about it.

If it matters, I got the Dodge 1500 quad-cab with towing package and big V8. 75K miles with no significant problems. I think this is typical of all modern vehicles though.

*Previous truck was 1-ton, but due to back problems Doc said I needed something lighter if using it as daily driver.

4

I’ve owned Chevys, fords and Dodge PUs. IMO Chevys are more comfortable. Ruggedness about the same. Dodge was by far the lest reliable - I’ll never buy another one.

5

I’ve owned a Ford, Chevy, Mazda (before they were made by Ford) and a Toyota. My current truck, the Toyota Tundra, has them beat on all of the measures that you specified. By far. Yes they are more expensive. IMHO, they’re worth it.

6

My wife has a 2003 Ford F-150 that is the most solidly build truck I have ever ridden it. When we go places that I do not want to drive it is very comfortable. But during hunting season it is my truck for the month, I am otherwise a performance car guy.

The thing has over 150,000 miles and does not have a squeak or rattle of any kind. I have changed the oil regularly and once the spark plugs and coils, there are no plug wires, (warning! do not try to change the plugs yourself on these trucks). On logging roads, over washboard bumps, it is solid. It has the towing/hauling package and all the options.

I do not know if this truck is just a fluke because she had a Toyota and 2 Chevys prior to buying the Ford, both which rattled after a few years, but damn it is a great truck.

I am solidly in the GM camp when it comes to performance cars, Mustangs do no interest me at all. But when it comes to trucks, Ford makes them better. I live in an active logging area and all of the fleets from all of the various logging and industrial companies are Ford. I have never seen a fleet of Chevy, Dodge or Toyota trucks being used in the real world working environment.

7

I wish like hell Nissan still made a nice small truck like they did in the mid 90’s. Best damn vehicle we own. 300k and still going. Most useful truck we own.

I’ve never had a Chevy, but we had them when I was a kid. Utter crap. My friend has a Dodge. Utter Uber Crap.

We have 3 Fords, but they are so old as to not really fall within the scope of this thread I fear. Rugged? Everything was rugged in 1965! Someone ran into the old one once, didn’t put a mark on it, and they had to be towed off! :smiley:

8

I’m happy with my 1995 F-150. Not a daily driver, just a weekend chores and hauling truck. It’s comfortable with a nice cushy bench seat and relatively simple with crank windows, manual heating controls, manual door locks, and has been simple to work on.

9

I find the 97-03 F-150 model to be quite nice. It was the first of the newer rounded design. The cloth seats in my '02 are just comfortable enough, its quiet, and there really isn’t any fuss with the features.

I’ve also driven a buddies '12 F-150, and i was disappointed with the direction Ford has gone. The seats felt much stiffer, they definitely weren’t the couches my older Ford has. The truck is noticeably taller, must be at least 3 inches. The bed is taller to boot. The pipes are louder, though I prefer a quieter truck some people sit squarely on the other side of that preference. And there’s at least four to five inches of empty space under the hood between the aesthetic grill and the radiator.

In all, the squaring of the newer Fords really hits you in the visibility department, since you’re sitting higher and the hood doesn’t drop off as much as it used to. The bed is higher as well. I’m fairly attuned to the dimensions of my older truck, but just parking made me queasy of possibly hitting someone/thing.

As for durability, this old truck has really held on. The Achilles Heel of this model series seems to have been the transmission, but I’ve been lucky. I regularly use my truck for ~5k lb towing, and it’s been reliable. Going on the far side of 250k miles at this point, and from where I’m sitting it will do another 50k easy. All electronics are stock (added a trailer brake unit too) and they’ve been reliable. Power windows/locks/radio/heat/ac are all solid. IME Fords have reliable AC units, and that is a must for me.

I cant speak on ruggedness too much, besides to say that I DD and its been good to me so far. For those of you looking into the beat-em-up offroad tests, I haven’t done enough (intentional) offroading to say.

Can’t speak much for the other brands. My friends '10 Dodge 1500 has some of the worst seats I’ve sat on. I don’t want to give the whole brand a bad name, but it was uncanny how hard they were. Another friends '05 Dodge was really comfortable.

10

I assume you aren’t actually lifting the truck :), so what does this mean? Does the suspension get stiffer as the tonnage increases?

I know nothing about trucks, but had believed that 1/2 ton, 1 ton, etc referenced the hauling capacity - but since you referenced elsewhere pulling 5 tons with your 1/2 ton truck, that is possibly wrong?

11

It’s an archaic system of classifying trucks by nominal in-bed payload capacity; it doesn’t consider towing at all. My “3/4 ton” truck can pull a 6-ton trailer. If I don’t have a trailer on it, I could certainly load the bed with far more than 3/4 ton.

12

Yes. On each major brand there are a number of diffences when you go from a 1/2 ton model to a 3/4 ton. The half tons are specially made and marketed to a ‘non-truck’ audience. An F150 for example has a lighter thus more flexible frame and a more car like suspention. When you go to an F250 they have a heavier frame with a suspension that is stiffer yet allows more travel. It also makes the vehicle much higher off the ground. When going from a 3/4 ton to a 1 ton the differences are far less, the frame is exactly the same the suspension is a bit heavier for the increased payload.

If you want a comfortable ride that’s easy to get in and out of you are limited to half tons. The larger trucks ride higher and bounce you around more.

Tonnage does have a relationship to towing capacity but that is mostly do to the weight the rear axle is designed to carry. For towing what matters is horse power and gear ratio. A F150 and F250 are available with the same engine, the towing capacity difference between them is within a hundred pounds. You’d need to pay more attention to how much tongue weight the trailer has on the F150. Both could pull a 8000 pound trailer but the F150 may not be able to handle a single axle trailer that puts a 1/2 ton of weight on it’s rear axle.

13

My friend has an old beater 1990 Nissan Hardbody that he has always treated like shit and it just won’t die at 389,000 miles. It’s a 1/4 ton and so easy to drive. These trucks are highly prized by Mexican blue-collar workers here in Houston to the point that guys ask if he’s selling it every time he goes to the hardware store.

I don’t understand why "mini trucks aren’t popular in the U.S.

14

What reason are you looking at trucks for?
Are you going to be towing/hauling big loads or smaller loads in the bed?
Are you looking for an off road or trail rig?
Are you looking at new trucks and if not how far back are you willing to go back?

Or is this just a general question in regards to trucks?