Which chip truck should I get?

[Griff93]

I fit 4 sweet gum trees and 1 oak tree's worth of limbs/brush in my F550 Wednesday. It had no problem pulling that and a BC1000XL around on hills. Filled up the tank Friday-$87. It will go about 300 miles on that towing.

 

[ChoppyChoppy]

Commercial vs not is screwy because it varies by state.

Here if the truck is over 14k GVWR it's considered commercial. If the GVWR is over 26k you need a class B. If you have that truck and are towing a trailer over 10k, you need a class A.

Now the license on it's own isn't a big deal, aside from having to get a physical every 2 years for the med card it's no different than a regular license.

To register the truck is where it gets expensive. It goes by weight, so it can be $600+ vs $200 for a regular truck.

 

[lone wolf]

I fit 4 sweet gum trees and 1 oak tree's worth of limbs/brush in my F550 Wednesday. It had no problem pulling that and a BC1000XL around on hills. Filled up the tank Friday-$87. It will go about 300 miles on that towing.

What does the 550 weigh? What does the chipper weigh? Are you under CDL with both?

 

[Griff93]

The 550 weighs just under 10,000 lbs. It can hold 14 yards of chips at 550 lbs per yard for 7,700 lbs. The chipper weighs 4700 lbs per listed spec. That gives me a combined full weigh of 22,400. Very rarely do I fill the bed completely full.

 

[lone wolf]

The 550 weighs just under 10,000 lbs. It can hold 14 yards of chips at 550 lbs per yard for 7,700 lbs. The chipper weighs 4700 lbs per listed spec. That gives me a combined full weigh of 22,400. Very rarely do I fill the bed completely full.

How do you think it would do pulling an 11000 lb chipper my bandit 1890?

 

[Griff93]

My f550 is a 7.3 6 speed truck with 4.88 gears. It would do it but I'd want more truck if I was going to do it everyday. I guess it wouldn't be to bad in a flat area. We have lots of hills here.

 

[ChoppyChoppy]

I can tell you that every Ford diesel I have run I have no been impressed with. Maybe with a programmer and some work it wakes them up, but stock vs stock other brands...

When I was in the Air Force we had a fleet of 96-2002 Dodges and Fords. The first time I ran a Ford (been running a Dodge for a while, as we had "assigned" trucks) I thought the park brake was stuck on... yeah.. that bad! I was pulling 2 loaded trailers with bombs up a hill and I started to smelling bad hot, burning smell. Then just about every light on the dash lit up and the truck quit.
We had to pull about 20 loads on that hill over that week. We ended up killing 3 more F350s (burned up the engines!) until the motor pool told us we weren't allowed to use the Fords to pull, had to use Dodges. The Dodges pulled it no trouble.

Trucks looked like this:

At the shop we have a 1990 F-Super Duty (basically a 450 before there was a 450) with a 7.3L, A 2002? F350 crew cab with the 7.3L, 97 F350 with 7.3, 2005? F550 crew cab with the 6.0L and a 2007 F450 with the 6.0L (don't quote me on the years of the ? ones, I might be off a little).
I have run all of them and none have impressed me at all.

I have also run a several Duramax trucks and have owned several Cummins trucks.

The Fords... stand on it... .wait... wait... wait... wait... starts making a ton of noise... wait... wait... wait... oh... ok... starting to go. The 1990 isn't horrible being it's an old design, 185hp, but the others have no excuse. The F450 is a 6 speed, I figured that would pull real nice, but with a cord of wood (barely putting the trucks on the overloads) I could no joke win in a drag race with my 1983 Chevy C350 with a 160hp 350 and 4 speed.


Cliff Notes:
I'm not trying to badmouth any brand of truck, I truly have no preference to brand as long as it does the job. If I was shopping around, I would see about loading down whatever truck and taking it on the steepest hills you can find before buying it.

 

[lone wolf]

My f550 is a 7.3 6 speed truck with 4.88 gears. It would do it but I'd want more truck if I was going to do it everyday. I guess it wouldn't be to bad in a flat area. We have lots of hills here.

Its flat as a pancake here.

 

[TheShanks]

Spent some time in an International. Slow as balls. It was geared kinda low and the worn Eaton fuller 6 speed didn't help. But it could tow a 4700lbs Vermeer without issue. That particular truck had a bigger and taller box than a trim lift and a massive locker behind the cab for gear for sure but had a really short set of tail gate doors witch ment you really could'nt fill it anymore than a trim lift box.

 

[no tree to big]

Spent some time in an International. Slow as balls. It was geared kinda low and the worn Eaton fuller 6 speed didn't help. But it could tow a 4700lbs Vermeer without issue. That particular truck had a bigger and taller box than a trim lift and a massive locker behind the cab for gear for sure but had a really short set of tail gate doors witch ment you really could'nt fill it anymore than a trim lift box.

What international? There are slow ones and fast ones we had an international with a crane on it 210 hp from factory 200+ thousand miles and a bazillion hours probably a lot less power... wouldn't do 55 on flat ground now we have chipper trucks that'll do 75 fully loaded and a 9k pound chipper it's all in the options homie. They make little chip boxes they make big chip boxes then they make bigger ones don't blame international cause some dillhole optioned a truck poorly.
Make a bigger tailgate we have a converted contractors dump body with a 12 inch gate it's a pain the we have truck with a 30 inch gate it's awesome