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Why not buy the truck you know to be reliable, then just add a few trailers? It takes less power to pull say, a cargo or utility trailer loaded down, than to pile it all in your pickup. Tongue weight would produce less wear and tear on shocks, than full weight loaded in the bed. Let the cheaper trailer take the brunt of the hauling.
HD pickups haul compressors and welders and toolboxes mounted in the bed of the truck, how is a semi truck service vehicle suppose to service the broken down semi tractor that is sitting alongside the expressway. You can’t expect the mechanic to pull his service vehicle with a trailer attached to it in front of a busy expressway how is he suppose to back it up with all the traffic. These service vehicles get their equipment power right from the truck also you are talking nonsense that all HD trucks are unreliable have you ever had one?. These HD trucks have to get into some tight areas were towing a trailer is not acceptable. I don’t know we’re some of these crazy questions come from how do people even think of this kind of stuff. If a HD pickup was so unreliable why do they sell millions of them. Also HD pickups have a beefier frame and HD components than a regular pickup. When I worked at Chrysler’s Warren Truck assembly plant we made the 250 and the 350 pickups along with the D150, and I worked in the KDX building were the truck frames were assembled and I can tell you for a fact that the 250 frame was heavier than the 150 and the frame for the 350 was even heavier than the 250 frame. The HD frames had heavier crossmembers and brackets than the regular D150 pickup also everything was beefier on the HD pickups.
What is the best brand of truck for "super-duty" work? I'm talking about something above a Ford F150. Will be for moving extremely heavy granite and quartz countertops for houses, which can weigh as much as 25 lbs per square foot. Or PSL (parallel strand lumber) which is very heavy also.
I hear the Ford F250/350 and the Chevy 2500/3500 and the Ram 2500/3500 are not really that reliable. Being "tough" and reliable are 2 different things. A neighbor here had a Ram Diesel that he bought brand new and spent so much time at the dealership that he traded it in for a Chevy Tahoe instead. I've heard super duty Ford/Chevy/Ram trucks having problems with their electrical system, alternators going bad, disc brake problems, cooling system issues, etc.
It's too bad a "super-duty" work truck is this unreliable. Meanwhile, people are hauling stuff way over the limit on their Honda CRVs and Civics and they keep going to 200k miles.
You cannot even begin to compare a CRV and a Civic to a heavy duty truck. When you overload a Civic, you may be carrying a total weight of 5k lbs. Maybe. When you overload a heavy duty truck you may be carrying a total weight of 30k lbs plus.
HD trucks take a lot more abuse than a car, so it's difficult to say whether or not one is reliable. They are also far more complicated systems than a car. But overall they will last longer if maintained properly. You would be very unlikely to take an F150, or a 1500 truck and work it to it's limits every day and it last nearly as long as the HD truck.
They are all pretty reliable overall though.
The F250/350 went through a few bad years with some diesel engine problems but the truck itself really hasn't had many issues to speak of through the years. The new 6.7 engine has proven far more reliable than the 6.0 and 6.4L.
The GM 2500/3500 is a pretty reliable truck. There have been some injector issues pop up here and there, a few water pump issues, and a few electrical gremlins like gauge cluster malfunctions but overall they are solid trucks.
The Ram 2500/3500 is also reliable, but not quite as reliable as the top two. The engine is near bulletproof, but there have been some shortcomings with other components. The Ram is probably not quite as reliable out of the box as the top two but doesn't cost nearly as much either. I have replaced all of the problem parts on my Ram 2500 and trust it to take me anywhere that I need to go at any time.
'Super Duty' is a marketing term and the trucks are still light duty trucks. If you have real work to do, with real weight, and require and efficient and reliable truck, buy a class 5 or 6 medium duty truck with the appropriate bed config. They cost a little more but will last multiple times longer than a light duty truck and, moving heavy weight, will be more efficient.
What do you consider real work?
Buying as Class 5 and 6 isn't really all that reasonable or feasible for someone who isn't hauling over the road. Those trucks also have their shortcomings. It all depends on what you intend to do with the truck. If you need to haul 10-15k lbs a Class 5 or 6 is really overkill for that purpose. A 1 ton truck will do that job and then go to the grocery store on Sunday.
The reliability "studies" are stupid. "Reliability" depends on how you use the vehicle. Obviously if you work the snot out of a vehicle, it is going to break more. Take your toyota Camry and stick a thousand pounds of stone in it then drive it around on dirt (not dirt roads, just dirt) then use it to pull some stumps out of the ground maybe pull a couple of corollas out when they are stuck int the mud, take it out and a forest trail for a weekend and bounce it around. Do that for a year and see what reliability scores it gets.
ford and Chevy both make really tough working trucks. (2500 and above). RAM does ok it you are mostly just towing or driving on surface streets. It is not bad for hard use, just not as tough. Any of the three are going to stand up to that sort of abuse way better than any other vehicle. Sure they will break more than a car that is driving only to the mall or grocery store or to work and back on nicely paved roads.
Get a Chevy (or GMC) 2500HD with the 6.0L V8 and manual everything (windows, door locks, don't get the big touch screen, etc.). That's probably the most bulletproof heavy duty truck right now and what I'd buy if I needed to do "real work". They've been making that engine pretty much unchanged (only a few small tweaks here and there) for the last decade and a half.
My loaded out Ecoboost F-150 has been just fine for me and I haven't had any reliability issues in the 2 years I've had it. She's mostly a highway cruiser though. I might throw the occasional bag of concrete in the bed, or go get a couple scoops of mulch from the garden center, but that's about it.
Just as a data point, it seems to me that the Border Patrol favors GM SUVs.
Reminds me of a conversation I had with a park ranger some years ago. His gig involved a lot of steep inclines and terrain best suited for a SUV, but the NPS was buying Chevy Impalas for them to use after first removing and storing the factory-installed AC. He didn't like the low riding cars with no ground clearance, and we both laughed at the ridiculous costs associated with removing and eventually reinstalling the AC systems.
People always boohoo about something they have never experienced or owned they see it on the internet so it must be true. They always jump to conclusions because their friends friend had trouble with his HD pickup so they all must be bad. Most on here are not even mechanically inclined but think they know just because they herd or read it somewhere. If HD pickups were that unreliable why are they still selling. These type of people make a big escapade just about getting a oil change they have to write a full page on a simple oil change.
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