New Truck 4WD or 2WD

If you were going to buy a new truck for fishing and hauling your boat would you get a new 4WD or a 2WD and why.

What are the advantages and disadvantages of each type of truck.


PS: I wish that they made a truck that got 50 mpg and had a 4WD option. But that's just a pipe dream right now.


I'll go first:

For me I would love to have a 4WD truck that I could use to get back into some holes that only have dirt or gravel roads leading back to them. And I'd like to be more secure at the launch ramp knowing that I could just about always pull my boat out of the water at any lauch ramp.

But with the gas prices recently going up over $4 /gallon again it makes me stop and thing about the gas milegage that 4WD vehicles get and how much money I'd be spending every time I filled the tank up.

My current small truck still only gets about 20 MPG as it's really old and the engine is worn. It's not leaking oil enough to notice but over time the piston and rings are not getting the compression that they did when they were new. I found the original sticker on the truck as I had saved it and it said the truck should be getting 21 to 26 mpg or in that range. I wonder if the gasoline we buy today has the same formula as what we bought 30 years ago? I know that they change the formula in the summer months to counter act the Ozone Pollution that comes from burning gasoline. Each year the refineries switch over from the winter blend to the summer blend so that tells me that they are formulating the gas differently these days during the hot summer months.

What I'll probably end up getting is a small truck if they still make them these days. Toyota, Nissan are the only two that I know of right now that make the smaller pickup trucks. The Tacoma and the Frontier are the only two smaller trucks that I could find. I saw a Chevy Colorado the other day and I think that they still make them for 2013 but it's called a medium PU truck. I just need a PU truck with an open back so that I can walk from the boat though the trucks bed and then jump out on dry land without getting my shoes wet when I recover my boat. Other than that and blocking the view when backing down the ramp I won't be putting a camper shell on the truck like I did in the past. My old camper shell was stolen right out of my drive way in 2009 when I was recovering from a heart attack in the hospital. Someone drove up into the drive way at my house and loaded up my camper shell and took off with it. It was sitting on the concrete at the side of the house. Some people have a lot of balls. I guess they took it for the value of the aluminum as it was pretty old and was missing a rear window and a side window. The rear window had been kicked out when a neighborhood kid was roller blading on my drive way and decided to kick the window out with his skate. Another neighborhood kid ratted on him and that's how I found out who did the dirty deed. That sliding glass window was going to cost well over $100 to replace. I was in the process of finding an alternative cheaper window when the camper shell went missing.

I was planning on using the camper shell for some future camping trips. Oh well I'm getting too hold for tent camping these days anyway. I just hope they enjoy the camper shell or the money.

On the opposite side of the fence I lost a camo bag that fell out of my truck on the way home from the fishing hole a few weeks back. Someone found it and called me to tell me that they found it in the middle of the road. It had my Fox Pro and Johnny Stewart electronic game callers in the bag and they were worth about $350 together. So he was nice enough to return them and even rejected a reward that I offered to him. But the same day I also lost a $300 Garmin eTrex Vista hand held GPS unit with all my fishing way points on it. That one hurts the most. I replaced that unit with a new one and I had all my way points backed up. So if I find someone fishing all my old fishing spots I'll wonder if they are the one who found my old gps unit! I have digital maps and all the accessories for that unit and might be interested in selling them to someone.

Good question. Will like to read replies.

Wow. Wordy

[I]Not that much difference in gas milage between 2 and 4 wheel drive in todays trucks. Personally would not consider a two wheel drive for myself. Don't need the 4 wheel everyday but when I do I am sure happy to have it.

Didn't you download your waypoints to your computer? My ETrex got locked up while trying to upgrade on Garmin.com and became worthless. Had to buy a new one but still have my waypoints saved.[/I]

I just went throught this twice in the last 2 years. I had a 2001 F150 with a 6 cyl that pulled my first boat, a 17 footer and it did ok but was geting old and very high mileage. Bought a 201 Stratos and the 6 cyc F150 was struggling. Sold old faithful...

Bought new 2wd Ford F150 with the suicide doors in 2010 with a V8. Pulled fine, but hated the new style suicide doors (my 2001 had them) as the front seat belts are attached to them and about strangle you if you forget to take them off and somebody opens the back doors :). Also MPG just sucked for me...8-9mpg when I pulled the boat. Other problem was on steep ramps, icy ramps and some of the ramps that are not kept up to park standards.....just always had nightmares of sliding into the water....Charlestown ramp is very slippery all year...

Last June traded in 2010 and got a 2012 4WD 4door Ecoboost 6cyl F150 XLT....LOVE IT!! The Ecoboost motor actually has more towing power than the previous V8, unless you go to the big 6.2 motor. Plenty of room for the grandkids in the back seat and full doors (yes you lose a foot or so in the bed). I put a topper on it and lined the bed for camping with the carpet Bedrug for the night before a tournament and putting the boat cover in the bed and lock it up vice putting the wet cover in the backseat.

I get about 21 mpg, when not pulling the boat and keeping my foot out of it. 14-16mpg when pulling the boat (and keeping my foot out it). The 4wd is handy a few times a year...slippery ramps, etc...more of a confidence thing I believe. At Monroe I can slid my boat in the side parking area (which is sloped gravel right into the lake) leave the trailer in the water...park it there...and at the end of the day drive boat right up onto the trailer..no ramp to mess with. a 2wd ...you could get the boat in the water but you may not get it out :)

With trucks, I am pretty much a Ford person....looked at the others but Ford trucks have never let me down...so why change...they all have basic model to the high dollar with everything on them....underneath all the fancy crap they are all trucks!

My new one has the Candy red metallic paint to match the boat....I am now looking at trading up the boat and my wife has warned me that the "newer" boat better be red as we are NOT trading in the truck to match the boat :)

Good luck.....

I would have to really study the upfront cost and the cost of fuel over the estimated life. I would love the security of 4WD but have a hunch I would settle for 2WD an an auto tranny. I drove a 4WD Ranger while mine was in the shop. It did not know how to drive past a gas station. I get 21-22 mostly around town.

My truck is only 17 years old with 174K miles so I have at least 5 more to make up my mind. :)

[QUOTE=raporter;516089][I]Not that much difference in gas milage between 2 and 4 wheel drive in todays trucks.

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Thanks for the reply about the 2WD vs 4WD. I'd like to have a 4WD truck as the ramps around here get slippery with algae on them. And I have almost slid my truck into the lake once when launching on those slippery algae filled concrete launch ramps. I had to get a guy to tow me up the ramp with his truck. Once my back tires get in the water and on that algae they don't have any tractions. I have been known to go over to the ramp with a big broom and scrub the algae off the concrete. It's hard work but it's better than having to scuba dive out in the water to retrieve my truck if it slips all the way back into the water. I've saw a guy up at Patoka Lakes Fisherman's Camping Site lose his truck when he backed down and went all the way into the water. He must have hit the gas pedal instead of the brake while in reverse.

I saved some of them to my old computer and then to an external hard drive. I can use that external hard drive to hook up to my new computer to transfer them into the new computer.

The trouble is I didn't save all my old way points. I lost some of them a few years back and only managed to save a few that were in the external hard drive.

I did manage to write all the waypoints down on a Fishing Hot Spots Waterproof Log Book that I bought at Gander Mountain a while back. So I have all the waypoints from my Garmin eTrex Vista copied into that log book now. All I have to do is enter them into a computer program like Humminbird PC or Easy GPS (heard of this one but never used it before ..yet) and then upload them from the computer into my new Montana. That's going to take me a while to figure out how to do. I've not used Humminbird PC much either. So I'll have to learn how to use those programs before I can do this.

About 10 years ago I went down to KY lake to fish with a few friends in a tournament. A friend gave me three pages of his waypoints while I was there. I still have them in a book somewhere in the house. He's been fishing that area of KY Lake for over 60 years since he was a kid. These are waypoint of crappie fishing spots in the Big Sandy area. I've not used them since I don't fish that area of KY Lake. I use to fish about 20 miles from there but since my father passed I don't go there anymore either.

PS: thanks for the other replies. I liked the one about the seat belts almost strangling the guy when someone opened the back doors. I could see that happening to me. :eek: