Browning01
Senior Member
Well said jesnic, the Allison is a phenomenal trans, but more than a 60hp tune on the 5 spd or 80hp tune on the 6spd can kill them quickly.
The Duramax is stronger and faster. Not that it can't happen but I haven't been beat by a Dodge. I've put over 250,000 on my 08 LMM and love it. I use to haul cars with it. She's retired from that and is my daily driver. To me it's the most comfortable of the 3 (Ford, Chevy, Dodge). The Cummins gets a little better mileage but not enough to offset the trans issues. Towing, my Chevy is a billy goat up hills and the exhaust brake allows me to not touch the brakes going down. The Allison is very easy to work on and has all kinds of upgrade options. Mine has Edge tuner that I keep on stage 2, 5" exhaust from the downpipe back, blocked the EGR, reroute the PVC, I upgraded to Alcoa 19.5's and got 200,000 miles out of them, added a 100 gallon fuel tank/toolbox in the bed that's gravity fed, etc... My dually gets around 10 mpg pulling 30,000 pounds and over 16 unloaded. I've seen 19 unloaded on the highway.
This pic is just under 34,000 pounds.
Pretty much mirrors my experience. My 2003 has 259k miles and has been very, very good to me. Balljoints went about 240k miles, I had Jeff Garmin beef up my transmission at 65k miles to live with the 503 rear wheel hp and 1060 ft/lb of torque, not because the transmission failed, but because I knew it wouldn't live too long with the power output. I'm planning on driving it 500k miles, and then making the decision to keep it or move on.Here's my '03 Ram Cummins story. I'm the original owner with 236,000 miles. I pull a 30' fifth wheel camper and a pressure washing unit that carries 600 gallons of water and 200 gallons of chemicals. The only issue I had was back about 3 years ago, a friend of mine borrowed it to move. When he brought it back to me, he filled her up with 31 gallons of the "good stuff". Then drove from Roswell, Ga to Jackson...67 miles. The "good stuff" being 93 octane gas! The gas ate up the seals in the lift pump. Took it back to the dealer, they cleaned out the tank, replaced the lift pump, and pulled the injectors, inspected them and put them right back in. It's been fine since. No transmission problems up to this point. I've always owned Fords but when they quit using Cummins in the 250's and 350's....I quit using them. Which truck is faster from red light to red light???? Who cares? Which engine is found in heavy equipment, fire trucks, marine applications, generators, etc.? If you're truly concerned about the Dodge transmission not lasting...call Jeff Garmin with Garmin Diesel Performance and he'll custom build you a trans for your application.
when you are done with the Duramax and the Cummins get you a power stroke good for3 or even 400.000 miles. good luck with your search.