Cost of an engine/transmission replacement?

[Martinjmpr]

The prices for new full size trucks are redonkulus. $50k just gets you in the front door.
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Seems like you could buy a 15 year old beater for $2k and even if you threw in a $5k engine and a $3k transmission you'd still be at $10k, 1/5 the cost of new.
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In any case, I wouldn't be cross shopping used-beater-vs-new anyway. I'd be cross shopping used-beater-vs.- 5 - 8 year old non-beater-with-110k or so.

 

[Buliwyf]

Perfectly good expired lease F150's are around $20-29,000 all the time.

But they won't be the new Al bodies. And keep an extra $1500 on hand to replace the rocker boxes under the doors if you live in the salt belt.

 

[sdwhip]

Why is everyone assuming you need 50K+ to buy a new truck? Just because they build trucks with everything imaginable doesn't mean you have to buy them. I bought a new Ram Outdoorsman 4X4 for less than 35K and financed much less than that with my trade. Could have gotten an Express, (base model with Hemi and 4X4) for around 28K. Before that I had a 2011 Ram 2500 ST Cummins that I got for 36K new. You can't get them that cheap anymore though and would more likely be around 40K. New Rams usually have better rebates so maybe if you want a Ford or Chevy it will cost you more. Maybe not. I can see others opinions on wanting older trucks to build for extreme conditions or because they like old iron, but you still don't have to spend more than 30-35k to get a nice new 4X4 that will get you where you need to go both on and off road.

 

[Buliwyf]

A bare bones, but still pretty nice, Ram 2500 4x4 is about $35,000 around here. Nice pricing indeed. Can hardly get a little Mustang for that. Ford is at least $41,000 for a similar truck. I don't keep up with GM because I suck, and GM hates me. But GM usually charges as much as Ford does last I checked. If only Dodge would add manual hubs, longer front arms, and some more rustproofing. No doubt at all, Dodge has the best pricing by far.

I was tempted by the Dodges, but I live in the rust belt in the winter. We have the easiest source of salt in the world under our lake. So I naturally had to cross Dodge off my list.