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Building the Perfect Pickup
Trucks are complex machines. If you were to tear your pickup apart, you would find a core collection of parts and systems spread out over your shop floor — the chassis, bed, axles, engine, cab, brakes, tires, transmission, radio, seats and emission systems. As a buyer, you will be challenged with a similar task when purchasing a truck. Not only do you have to choose a certain truck size and model, but you will also have to pull together many of its parts and systems — like choosing the right engine for your towing application or selecting a bigger cab size for your crew.

Obviously, you will need to do a little reflecting. You will need to ask yourself a few questions about your truck’s intended applications. Where are you going to drive this truck? How many people will you transport each day? What are you going to be towing and hauling? How much will it all weigh? How are you going to load it? Where is the load typically placed? How far do you normally drive? Are you going uphill or downhill? Are you hitting headwinds or tailwinds? Is the truck for work, personal use or both? There are wide range of questions that should help you focus the applications and requirements for the pickup you want to buy.

“[Customers] need to be considering their application and their duty-cycle. Where they’re going to run with their truck and what they’re going to be doing with it,” says Todd Kaufman, assistant F-Series marketing manager for Ford Motor Co. “Transmission, axles, wheels, tires, axle ratios — those are all just one piece of the puzzle when choosing a truck. What you have to do is put together the entire package with your application.”

A dealer is a great person to bounce questions and ideas off of. Once you both begin to nail down some concrete applications and spec requirements for your pickup, you can begin to tinker with some of the options.

A good place to start is the engine — the heart of your pickup. Compact and mid-size pickups typically come with four- and six-cylinder gas engines, while full-size pickups tout bigger six-cylinders, V8s, V10s and even diesels. Take the Dodge Ram 1500 for instance. It comes with three engines choices — a 3.7-L V6, 4.7-L V8 or a 5.7 HEMI V8. The Dodge Ram 2500s and 3500s come with either a 5.9-L Cummins turbo diesel or the 5.7-L HEMI V8. When deciding, ask your dealer about key engine characteristics like horsepower, torque and pulling power. Also, be sure to research fuel economy. A good engine should give you the horsepower and torque to pull your load, yet still provide a good value on miles per gallon. If you’re like most folks these days, you will be looking at the diesel engines.

“The diesel comprises three quarters — 75 percent — of our Super Duty sales today,” says O’Connor. “The diesel is very popular with the personal use market, although we’re seeing a higher number of commercial users buy diesels every year. We’re definitely seeing diesel popularity increase.”

Traveling along the drivetrain of the pickup, buyers should also be inspecting their transmission choices. Do you want a manual or automatic transmission? Do you need 2-wheel or 4-wheel drive? Many pickups also offer options like limited slip, locking differentials and electronic traction control.

“The primary transmissions that go on these trucks industry-wide are automatics. However, there are applications where manual transmission may be more applicable,” explains Loewer. “There will be situations where you’re doing some real heavy hauling, where it’s a lot of start/stop or when you’re in hilly terrain. By definition a manual transmission is much more durable than an automatic in these situations.”

Both engine and transmission are key components when considering your truck’s towing and hauling needs — and so are axles and axle ratios. Check your specs and you will notice your pickup has front and rear axle ratings, called gross axle weight ratings. The GAWR is the value specified by the vehicle manufacturer as the load-carrying capacity of a single axle system, as measured at the tire-ground interfaces. A Nissan Titan has a front gross axle weight rating of 3,300 lbs and a rear gross axle weight rating of 3,800 lbs. Having a good balance of axle weight on your pickup is important, as is picking the right axle ratio.

But what’s an axle ratio?

Well, it’s a specification that tracks the turning of the drive shaft, rear axle and wheels on your pickup. There are three main axle ratios on most pickups today — 3:42, 3:73 and 4:10. So, if your truck has a 4:10 axle ratio, that means your drive shaft will turn 4.1 times in order to turn the rear wheels once. Why does axle ratio make a difference?

“You have to think about it from the engine’s perspective,” notes Tim Cavanaugh, GM marketing product manager. “The engine is having to run a higher RPM in order to make the rear axle turn at the same speed for a 4:10 compared to a 3:42. The simplified version of what happens is that you undoubtedly eat more gas with a 4:10 than you would with a 3:42.”

Of course, a 4:10 axle ratio will give your truck more speed and better pulling power from a dead stop with a heavy load. But if you’re more concerned about fuel economy, you might want to consider moving to a 3:73 or a 3:42. “The average axle is going to be a 3:73,” says Cavanaugh. “It’s between the high torque and the high fuel economy. It’s the most common out there for a pickup.”

Beds, Cabs & Comfort
Once you’ve debated the essential internal systems of your pickup, you will need to move on to more external features. Going from the inside out, your pickup truck will offer a sundry of outfitter options — things like cabs, creature comforts, bed sizes, tires and various paints and color schemes.

For a professional, cab size and bed size are of vital importance in the commercial pickup’s blueprint. Most manufacturers have two bed size options: 6- and 8-ft boxes.

“Traditionally, [manufacturers] offer somewhere in the neighborhood of a 6-foot box — some are 6 feet, 3 inches some are 5 feet, 8 inches. Then there is a long box, which is an 8-foot box because some people need it for trailering and hauling extra building materials,” explains Veltri.

In front of that bed sits the cab. The cab is where the driver and workers will hopefully be traveling in comfort from jobsite to jobsite. Most pickups today have the option of three different cab stylings — regular, extended and crew cabs.

1. Regular Cab — A truck that has one bench seat or two bucket seats with no second row seating or storage area.
2. Extended Cab — A pickup that provides bench seating in the front, as well as in the back. But the back seating is small and geared toward short rides or extra storage space.
3. Crew Cab — A truck that sports a full second row of
   seating with four doors that swing open.

When it comes to traveling comfortably with a group of workers day in and day out, crew cabs are the growing choice for contractors.

“We’re seeing a migration up in cab size,” says O’Conner. “Our crew cabs make up half of our total sales now. Many of these commercial customers, who are buying this as a commercial truck, are using it as their family vehicle, as well as their work vehicle.”

To truly get an accurate assessment of the cab, buyers really need to jump inside the truck to test ergonomics, leg space, headroom and seat styling. Once inside the cab, a buyer can also inspect the pickup’s bells and whistles.
Air conditioning, leather seats, CD players, OnStar systems, speaker configurations, amplifiers, cruise control, auto locking, keypad and keyless entry — there are a wealth of creature comfort features available.

Companies such as Ford are even seeing a lot of success marketing premium-grade pickups like its Ford Lariat and King Ranch models. These trucks are the ultimate in the heavy-duty luxury pickup experience. The King Ranch is outfitted with Castaño leather seating, two-tone paint, 16-in. aluminum wheels, automatic temperature control, moon roof, six disk CD changers and a myriad of other high-end items.

Of course, it doesn’t matter if you want it stripped down or opulent; buyers have the choice of designing a pickup truck that fits their exact needs as a professional. And once you’ve figured out all of your important application requirements, you can finish your search with cosmetic details like color and styling.

BACK TO TOP

Gross Vehicle Weight Rating Gross Vehicle Weight Rating is the maximum total vehicle weight, measured at the tire-ground interfaces, for which the vehicle possesses components adequately rated to safely carry. Trucks are classified by eight different GVWR categories, listed below. Truck Classification by GVWR Class 1 Class 2 Class 3 Class 4 Class 5 Class 6 Class 7 Class 8 0-6,000 lbs 6,001-10,000 lbs 10,001-14,000 lbs 14,001-16,000 lbs 16,001-19,500 lbs 19,501-26,000 lbs 26,001-33,000 lbs 33,001 lbs +

Medium-Duty Trucks
For most compact equipment owners, a pickup is just the right tool for their transportation needs. When it comes to hauling small machinery, like a mini excavator or a tractor loader backhoe, a pickup truck has adequate towing capacity. But pickup trucks are definitely limited in size and strength. If your crew needs a larger and more powerful set of wheels, a medium-duty size truck is the next step up.

Medium-duty trucks fall into the Class 4 through 7 categories — 14,001- to 33,000-lbs GVWR. Heavy gooseneck transports, big livestock trailers, flatbeds and dump bodies, medium-duty trucks are the versatile workhorse of the truck family tree. These are large commercial trucks built with only a cab and chassis, ready to be outfitted with whatever body you need — stake beds, aluminum boxes, dump bodies, flatbeds, vacuum units, water tankers, man lifts and anything else you can dream up.

But why would a small contractor move up to such a big truck? For starters, more power, more versatility, more options and more durability.

“There’s an argument that there’s much more durability in vehicles when you start getting into the Class 5 trucks — a [Chevy] C4500 or 5500 or in Ford’s case an F450 or F550,” explains Loewer. “If you’re going to be hauling heavy equipment occasionally, something from 10,000 to 12,000 lbs on a drag-behind trailer, you’re probably fine with a 1-ton pickup. If you’re hauling this everyday and it’s going to be 10,000 to 12,000 lbs worth of equipment, from a longevity standpoint, you’re probably better off with a Class 5 truck — a C4500-type vehicle. The medium-duty is designed around the fact that this truck is going to be hauling or pushing all the time. From a longevity standpoint, you’re better off sizing up.”

Popular commercial, medium-duty truck brands include GMC’s TopKick, Chevy’s Kodiak, Ford’s F-450 through F-750 Series and a whole host of International and Kenworth commercial vehicles. According to reports, Dodge will also be entering the medium-duty segment again soon. These trucks are distinguished by their bigger sizes, larger brakes, more durable transmissions, heavier frames and engine choices with names like Cummins, Caterpillar and Duramax diesels (GMC and Chevy still provide a big block gas engine).

Transmissions range from 5- to 13-speed manuals to automatic 4-, 5- or 6-speed units (mostly Allisons). Front suspensions start at around 6,000 lbs and go up to 16,000 lbs; rear suspensions start at around 12,200 lbs and go up to 45,000 lbs. The choices in medium-duty trucks are varied and many — weight classes, frames, suspensions, axles, tires, transmissions, cabs, body design and so much more.

The best advice CE can give you is to go talk to a medium-duty truck dealership and ask for the commercial truck specialist. They can get you started on discovering all the options in the vast medium-duty realm, so you can begin to create a medium-duty truck that’s tailor-made for your exact needs.

“Every single customer has a unique need,” says Larry Savage, F-Series chassis cab marketing manager for Ford Motor Co. “And we try to fill that need with as wide of a product range as we can offer.”

Keith Gribbins is managing editor of Compact Equipment.