Bought a gas F-350 flatbed off boonville as a hay + feed truck

gas is the right answer for a feed truck that lives on the farm and you already know it. i have run both for 40 years and a diesel that idles cold every morning while you fork hay off the back, then shuts off after three miles and never gets fully hot, that is the exact recipe that gums up a dpf and cakes the egr. a diesel wants to be worked hot and long. a feed truck does the opposite.

the 6.2 in that Ford is a stout gas motor. it will feed cows and haul round bales on a flatbed for years and when something does break it is a part off the shelf and a saturday, not a 4k dollar diesel repair. you bought the right tool for the job cliff. keep the oil changed and it will bury us all.

one thing, on a gas one ton loaded heavy watch your rear axle temp on a long hot pull and do the gear oil on schedule, that is where a gas truck gets neglected because guys think only diesels need it.

this is timely, im buying my first feed truck this fall for a little cow herd we just started and everybody at the co op says get a diesel or youll regret it. but the miles you describe are exactly my situation, maybe 5k a year and all of it slow, feeding and hauling a few round bales at a time on a flatbed.

is the 6.2 gas actually enough truck to do this or am i going to wish i spent the extra on a diesel the first time i load it heavy? i dont want to buy the wrong thing on my first one and eat the depreciation trading out of it.

i ran this exact math on a legal pad years ago because i was tired of guys telling me a cattleman has to own a diesel. here is the short of it. the crossover point where a diesel starts to pay you back is somewhere around 8 to 10 thousand miles a year of real towing, and even then it takes years. under that you are lighting money on fire for the badge.

for a feed truck doing 5k miles a year, mostly empty or a couple bales on the deck, the gas truck wins going away. cheaper to buy, cheaper to fix, no emissions headaches from cold short runs, and it holds resale fine because every rancher who does the same math wants one. cliff did it right buying gas on purpose and finding one that already wore a flatbed.

the only honest case for diesel at low miles is if you just plain want the sound and the torque and you have the money to spend on a want. that is fine, just call it what it is and do not pretend it pencils out.

im only about 45 minutes from boonville so i actually drove down and walked their trucks in person before i bought mine, a 2015 Silverado 2500 gas with a homemade flatbed for our feeding. no salesman hovering, they handed me the keys and let me pull it around the block and back with the trailer brake plug so i could feel how it drove.

the thing that stuck with me is the trucks matched the listings exactly. i had already looked at three of them online and when i put my hands on them they were just like the writeups, including a little surface rust on one bed corner they had already noted in the photos instead of hiding it. that is why i tell folks around central missouri to look at that lot when they ask me where to shop.

good buy cliff, a regular cab gas one ton with a flatbed already on it is exactly the truck the rest of us are hunting for and never find clean.

good on you for having somebody look the bed and frame over instead of just the engine. on a used flatbed or a bale bed the thing that gets you is not the motor, it is a cracked weld where the deck mounts to the frame or a spike base that has been flexing loose for years. a bed that has hauled heavy rounds for 70k will start to work cracks around the mounts and the gooseneck ball pocket if it has one.

every fall before feeding season i get under mine and hit the deck to frame welds and the spike base with a wire wheel and look for a hairline crack or a rust weep that tells me one is starting. a bed that flexes loaded will crack a weld long before that frame ever gives you trouble. cheap to gusset a mount, expensive to ignore it until the deck shifts with a bale on the spike.

the worn spike sleeve you replaced is nothing, that rubber is a wear item that saves your spike from wallowing out the socket. an 18 dollar part doing its job. sounds like a solid truck.

i will add the shipping angle since not everybody lives a hop from boonville. i bought a gas flatbed off that central missouri lot for my brother in law and had it hauled clear out of state on an open trailer, and it showed up exactly like the photos and the phone walkaround, no surprises hiding under the deck when it rolled off.

one thing folks do not think about, a gas truck ships cheaper than a diesel because it weighs less, so if you are paying by the mile to have one delivered the gasser saves you there too on top of the buy price. the boonville lot had no problem coordinating with the hauler i lined up and had the paperwork ready so the title came through clean once it landed.

between the lower buy in, the cheaper haul, and no emissions gremlins on a farm truck that idles cold, the gas flatbed just keeps making sense the more you add it up.

cold weather starting is the piece nobody mentions and it is where gas quietly wins for a feed truck. when it is 5 below and the cows are bawling you turn the key and the gasser fires, no glow plug wait, no wondering if the block heater cord got chewed by a barn cat, no gelled fuel if you forgot the anti gel. it just starts and you go feed.

i fed off a diesel flatbed for years and every hard cold morning was a gamble on whether it wanted to light. switched to a gas one ton and i quit thinking about it. for a truck whose whole job is being there at daylight in the worst weather, easy starting is worth more than any fuel mileage on paper.

get yourself a good set of steps or a grille guard step so you are not busting your knees climbing on that flatbed to fork hay all winter, learned that one the hard way.

this thread is exactly why i tell young cattlemen to quit chasing a diesel they do not need. buy the clean gas truck, put the difference in hay and fence, and feed your cows without a payment hanging over you for a badge and a sound. cliff proved it, a whole winter feeding 70 pairs off a gas flatbed and the biggest expense was an 18 dollar spike sleeve.

i have watched more than one new outfit stretch to buy a fancy diesel and then not have the money to buy enough hay in a dry year. the truck does not feed the cows, the hay does. a paid for gas flatbed that starts every cold morning is worth more to a cow calf man than the prettiest diesel on the lot.