[John Rogers]

I find it really amazing how a simple question can easily crumble into a mass of unmanageable gibberish? At any rate for getting a dually I have had one since 2004 or so and love it. I bought a Ford, year 2000 as it had the 7.3L engine and at the time was recommended by several Dodge owners? The 7.3 engine is stressed less than the 6.0 and when the 6.0 engines came out the Powerstroke forums were lit up with all the problems. I bought mine when it had 79,000 miles and the previous owner had died so it did not get used a lot. Carfax said all maintenance was done at a Ford truck center in TX and no wrecks. I installed a 4 inch SS exhaust, high flow air filter (got rid of that huge box) and an Edge programmer which gives me 18MPG around town in Econ mode. In Power mode it never works at all and could pull the toy hauler and race car (about 15,000 lbs loaded) up any hill easily. I installed a "Jake" brake and trans locker for downhill brake assist and so far the front brake pads are the ones that came on it.

The early ones have no cat and do not need any of that weird extra injection stuff and passes smog easily. Diesel stuff is finally being certified by CARB here in CA and for a long time they would not touch it.

Mine also came with a huge 5th wheel already mounted in the bed which was a bonus AND a CB radio which is handy on trips to PIR or Las Vegas. a 5th wheel trailer handles soooo much easier.

As for tires, they last about forever and mine are one size larger than original so the speedo is off a tad. Final thing to check is make sure that the "key" for the spare tire is included as they are serialized to the truck and you can not get the spare tire off without it as there is a built in lift type of system since they are a tad heavy!

I bought mine at one of the huge cars for sale credit union deals at Qualcomm stadium and was already preapproved for a loan. If you have that or the cash the dealer will discount pretty well. The dealer I used had not sold any trucks all weekend and was eager to get at least one sale and they wanted 28,500 for it and I paid 24,000 including tax, license, etc. They already had a Carfax which impressed me some.