To the comments on TCO I'm going to copy another post I made yesterday in my build thread:
I'm going to try to put together the best response I can on TCO while also not creating a book here. There are really a ton of variables, but I'll share my experience. I just knocked out my 60K maintenance and am sitting just under that mark as far as total mileage goes, unless otherwise noted any averages will be over this time frame. I track all maintenance and fuel usage in a software program, so these are real numbers here. I think the best way to break everything out will also be cost per 10K miles, this should make it fairly easy to scale out to any interval you want to compare.
I as much of my own maintenance as I can, so any costs listed will just be parts and not include labor. If you don't feel like getting down and dirty YMMV.
First up on the extra maintenance route is fuel filters. The service intervals on these are every 20K miles, so I have replaced mine 3 times to this point. I've spent $83.05 in total on fuel filters, which breaks down to $13.84 per 10K miles.
Next on the maintenance list is DEF, on the EcoDiesel they designed the tank at 8 gallons to last between 10K service intervals. In reality I've had to fill up quite a bit less. I'm at 5 fill ups for a total of 33.58 gallons on 53,816 miles since I have not had to fill up to match the 60K service interval. That's for a total of $92.58 or $2.76 a gallon. We'll call that 50K for easy math and we get $18.52 per 10K miles.
Last up on the maintenance front is the oil changes. There is a bit of extra oil involed as a full change is 10.5 quarts. The filter on this truck is also the european cartridge style and is a little expensive from the dealer. However this truck has a specified 10K service interval. My last truck was a GM 5.3L which specified 5K miles; some quick internet searching shows the current 5.3L and the EcoBoost to specify 7.5K miles. So even though the service will be slightly more expensive, you'll be doing it less often. I am going to call this one a wash since I don't feel like doing all the math involved here.
So maintenance will run you an extra $33 per 10K miles.
The final cost isn't maintenance related, but is the additional purchase price of the engine. Over the Hemi, the EcoDiesel was a $3,000 MSRP. I paid about 20% less than MSRP for the truck, so we are looking at $2,600 adjusted. It's worth keeping in mind here that with Ram you can get the diesel on any trim level, unlike the GMC and Ford trucks where you have to buy the higher trim level.
Moving on to the MPG front I am going to pull these numbers from Fuelly and also add in my experience with the EcoDiesel:
F150 2.7L EcoBoost is at 18.3 MPG
Chevy 1500 5.3L is at 16.6 MPG
Ram 1500 EcoDiesel is at 22.1 MPG
Ram 1500 EcoDiesel is at 24.5 MPG (Personal Average)
I've averaged $2.47 per gallon on diesel, which I am going to ignore for the calculations and use the national average. I usually pay around $2.80 in the summer and around $3.00 in the winter. My average earlier is lower due to fuel perks I will occasionally have. I could filter those fill ups out, but don't feel like doing the work. AAA puts us at $2.865 for Gas and $3.154 for Diesel. I'm going to ignore that several manufacturers recommend using mid-grade and stick to regular since I doubt many people follow that.
Cost per 10K miles:
F150: 10K Miles / 18.3 MPG = 546 Gallons * $2.865 = $1,566
Chevy: 10K Miles / 16.6 MPG = 602 Gallons * $2.865 = $1,717
Ram: 10K Miles / 22.1 MPG = 454 Gallons * $3.154 = $1,433
Ram (P): 10K Miles / 24.5 MPG = 408 Gallons * $3.154 = $1,287
EcoDiesel Advantage:
Ram v F150: $100 per 10K miles or $2,500 at 250K miles
Ram v Chevy: $250 per 10K miles or $6,250 at 250K miles
Ram(P) v F150: $246 per 10K miles or $6,150 at 250K miles
Ram(P) v Chevy: $397 per 10K miles or $9,925 at 250K miles
On the worst case you break even against the 2.7L EcoBoost on the lifetime of the truck and accounting for purchase price. I'd argue it'd be more fair to compare against the 3.5L to better match the engine capabilities, but there you go. Against the 5.3L is where you really start pulling ahead. For what it's worth my experience on the EcoDiesel is also quite a bit better than the average from Fuelly. Also in my experience 16.6 MPG is spot on for what I got in my GMC. For my particular situation I'm looking at a savings of $397 per 10K miles or nearly $10,000 at 250K miles.
It's also not worth discounting the extra range per tank and less time spent at the pump. Again back to my experience I'm at 194 less gallons per 10K than the F150 or about 10 stops at the fuel pump. I know you can get the larger fuel tanks in the F150s, but I will spitball those at $500 which will decrease your breakeven point. And if you really want maximum range I know titan makes a 39 gallon tank replacement, I wish I could swallow the $1,000 price tag for the even greater range.
I ran the numbers before buying and determined I'd save a good chunk of change given what I'd seen on the forums for averages. Aside from that I also just wanted the diesel and had for years. You bet I would have gotten a 2500 and a diesel if I could have justified the extra $10,000.
I think this still ended up turning into a book, but hopefully it answers your questions.
/end copy and paste. Again this is an extremely your mileage may very type of situation. All I can say is that in my experience I am coming out significantly ahead with my EcoDiesel as compared to my old 5.3L and likely any V8 out there now. Sure I wanted a diesel and that played into my decision process, but I have a couple friends with EcoBoosts that have been less than thrilled with their fuel economy. That's the closest comparison in the fuel economy segment.
I'd make the same choice over again, and it my sound like I'm trying to justify my purchase but I'd have no issues admitting I'd made the wrong choice on this one. It's also a very different discussion in my opinion on the small displacement diesels since you are looking at a much lower initial cost, I don't know that I could justify the added expense of a 3/4 Ton diesel unless you require it for towing.
