We’ve owned both- 7.3 Godzilla vs 6.7 PowerStroke- Super Duty Regrets?

Hey guys, welcome to another video in today’s video. We are going to unequivocally determine which is better gas or diesel. People argue about this all the time, but there obviously is a clear winner. It’S probably not what you think so, stick around check it out we’re going to go over some towing numbers, verse, the gas and I’m going to show you my numbers from the diesel all right for anybody has a fit about what I showed for the miles per Gallon we were getting welcome back to the Salty Trip channel, i’m Chris, we’re all about trucks, travel, full-time, RV life. We live in our fifth wheel, full-time and I have owned also a gas 7.

Godzilla, and now we have the diesel 6.7 Power Stroke. So we bought a 2022 F250 7.3 Godzilla engine uh back before we started doing RV stuff and we were thinking about getting a travel trailer and that was going to be plenty enough for it. And then we started looking around RVs and my wife said she wanted a fifth wheel.

She liked the high ceilings she liked, the you know more livable space and all that jazz. So we w up getting a fifth wheel. That’S what we’ve been towing the RV with, for I don’t know almost two years now is the 3/4toner ton, F250 7.3 Godzilla gas engine. So it’s been doing just fine.

The Godzilla has 430 horsepower 475 footlbs of torque, and the newer version has 485 footlbs of torque 10 10 footbs of torque. You know, what’s the difference really seriously, but we’ve been towing the fifth wheel and the fifth wheel is probably almost between 12 and 13,000 lb. Like let me just say it will get the job done, it absolutely pulls it just fine like I never felt like when I got on the highway that I didn’t have enough power um. We were probably about you, know this close to being over on payload. We probably were might been a little bit on payload because we actually took this F350, the one ton diesel that we have now and took it to a CAT scale and found out.

We basically had about 1,000 lbs worth of crap in our truck and that’s about how much we had in the other truck too. So it was probably about 1,000 lb and that payload capacity was only about 3,000 lb. So we only had 2,000 lbs for hitch weight. Left and we’re probably a little over 2,000 lbs of hitch weight. So now we got the F350, which has over 4,000 pounds of payload, and now we have 3,000 to play with a little over 3,000 to play with, but that really doesn’t have anything to do with gas or diesel.

But here’s the thing you, you really have to consider that, like when people start arguing about gas is better. This is their argument. It is it’s less maintenance and less worry about emissions garbage like with the diesels. You have the DPF, you have the the deaf fluid and your EGR and that’s the exhaust gas recirculation. Your DPF is your diesel particulate filter and your deaf is the diesel exhaust fluid that actually is introduced after your diesel particulate filter that helps uh reduce the NOx gases.
Anyway, that’s a lot of sensors, a lot of exhaust manifolds and parts and pieces that can fail and they’re all really expensive, and now we have the F350 6
7 Powerstroke diesel, so I’ve owned both driven both towed with both, and so I have a little bit experience. You say “ Well, well, you got the diesel and you gave up the gas, so you might as well think that diesel’s better right ?”. That may not exactly be the case and I’ll explain to you at the end. Why uh?

I may have a little bit of regrets anyway. Let’S first talk about the gas trucks, gas trucks, you know it’s less maintenance. They you know they, don’t they can’t haul as much as a diesel or pull as much technically by numbers wise. If you go by their tow the Ford tow charts some people tow way over what the things are supposed to, but anyway that’s a that’s a whole another thing. The big thing is the gas is simple and low maintenance and cheaper, and also it just.

It sounds good. I like the sound of a gas engine. I just you know we the one of the first things I did uh. If you guys remember back when uh I got the 2022 F250 is I change out the exhaust on it and because I don’t like it loud, i don’t want to you know: wake up my neighbors or nothing. I just like to hear a little rumble and know it’s there when I hit the gas and that’s probably one of the bad things too about it is like you know, I like the sound, so I may give a little more gas than I need to sometimes Anyway, so that’s one of the things is gas.

Trucks do use more fuel, it’s just that simple diesels are better on fuel economy, but not as good as you would think, and I’m going to tell you I’m going to show you some numbers that are going to surprise you all right. So gas trucks are cheaper. They less maintenance, less worry about emissions and all that mess. So that’s the benefits. What are the drawbacks?

The drawbacks really are that it technically can’t tow as much and it burns more fuel. Those are basically, you can just sum it up into that and as far as diesel trucks they’re more expensive, they take a lot more maintenance. They have all this emissions garbage that could possibly go wrong. You know everybody, you know hears about the CP4 pumps blowing up and u DPF uh filters getting clogged, and you know: sensors going bad and your deaf tanks and all this other garbage that you don’t have to deal with with gas. So everything is a little bit of giz intake, but the biggest benefits is you can tow a lot more?
That’S basically it when it comes to diesel, that’s the Oh and it gets uh more miles per tank. That was the one biggest thing that we reason why we did get the diesel, so we couldn’t go quite as far on a tank of fuel as we would like to we’d have to stop way more often and we’d have to pull into the the gas stations Where you know, if you boat’s not too bad, it can be rough sometimes, but with a fifth wheel it can be even rougher trying to find a place to fuel up, and you know we got the open roads uh card now, so we can get fuel with Uh the open roads program and we can pull into the truck lanes and stuff and get fuel there, but those are just some of the benefits and things that people like to consider. But what you have to really think about is gas and diesel. Trucks are just like any other tool, they have a purpose, and I know there’s a lot of fanboys out there for gas and there’s a lot of fanboys out there for diesel and they and they will go to their grave saying gas is better, no diesel’s, better Blah blah blah honestly, I’m not like that, i’m just I look at them as tools and they either they can do the job or they can’t. You know we told our fifth wheel with the gas and it gets up into highway speed.

Just fine there’s, no issues. Uh I saw somebody pulling you know: we don’t really pull around the Rockies and up in the mountains and everything – and I saw uh somebody another video where they had a 7.3 gas Godzilla with a similar size RV as ours, and it was pulling it up. A six % grade just fine. It was just staying at about 3500 RPMs, which is a sweet spot for the Godzilla, and it was not downshifting or anything, and it was pulling up 6 % grade.

But you was only getting. He was only getting 2 and a half miles to the gallon. You know that can be a big factor and the reason why we got the diesel was not because of power. It was just basically, so I could get more miles per tank and like well. Why didn’t we just get a bigger tank and long as the truck’s under warranty?

I don’t do any of that kind of stuff. I don’t do any of those kind of modifications until I’m fully out of my warranty and the dealership cannot say anything about anything that was done. You know whoever installed it could have, you know, messed something up and they could call that and then it it all winds up back on me. So I just keep it clean and keep a diesel and plus we wanted a one ton. We needed the more payload.

That was the big reasons more uh miles per tank of fuel, and the extra payload is why we upgrade to the 350 and honestly, I might have just stuck with the gas Godzilla. If it was a one ton and we’re out of warranty, I would have added the transfer flow. Was it 58? 60? Oh yeah, i think it’s like 58 gallon fuel tank and honestly, I don’t think I probably would have bought this diesel.

If that was the case, this the MSRP on this truck was 88,000 and the MSRP on the other truck uh. The gas truck was only 60 and it was an XLT granted. This does have a lot more bells and whistles, which you know, which are nice but they’re not necessary, but that’s $ 28,000 difference. We didn’t pay. You know MSRP for either one of these trucks we als.
You know you always wait till the end of the year and try to get a good deal and we got good tradeins and everything, but still it’s a lot of money. That’S a huge difference. How much fuel can you buy with $ 28,000? You know it’s a lot but hands down. As far as power goes, you can’t beat the diesel.

It produces more than twice the amount of torque as the Godzilla more than twice. It is a completely different animal. As far as when you’re towing, how much power you have? Yes, the 7.3 Godzilla gets it done and can do the job you’re not going to win any races, but it’ll get you where you want to go just fine and yeah with diesel trucks.

If you, you know, treat them right and keep up on the maintenance, the engine should last you a long time and so will gas it’ll. Last you a long time keep up on that maintenance. There’S all these other things that have issues with CP4 pumps and your DPF and your deaf fluid sensors and all this other stuff, and and that’s something that you may want to consider. But you can’t live in fear either. You know that’s why they have warranty on.

On these things, like I don’t get excited driving the diesel like as I used to get you know, it was fun driving the gas it’s kind of funny because, like you know, you hear the clicketity clack of uh of a diesel engine and – and it starts to Speak to you – and this is what I mean it’s talking to us all – engines talk. What’S it saying: chitty chitty chitty chitty, chitty, chitty, chitty, chitty, chitty, chitty, chitty, bang, bang, chitty, chitty, chitty, chitty, bang, bang, when you crank up a diesel engine, that’s just the first thing that comes to my mind: either that or like uh, an old tractor uh, pulling A bail of hay, but if you’re going to be towing heavy and often you know diesel is the way to go. It’S just like. I can’t say that for sure, but as long as this, a gas truck is within the the the tow capacity of it. Like you know, you don’t mind stopping for fuel, then just you know, a gas is just fine for the job.

You can’t say that one is better than the other. Like I said these are just tools just like it, you know. Do you use a framing hammer, or do you use a finishing hammer like what do you need for what job and, if you’re, towing, just a boat here and there a gas may be just fine for you, but if you’re towing, you know a 20,000lb fifth wheel, Rv you’re going to need a a diesel DY, it’s just it what the the tool calls for and we’re also going to as soon as I stop up here, we’re going to go over some like, like fuel mileage numbers, i’m going to give you my my towing Numbers from pulling my boat and uh just my average fuel consumption for this diesel, and it is not as big a difference from the gas as you might think. I thought it was going to be a lot better than it is and it was really surprising. So we’re going to get up here and in just a minute and I’m going to show you those all right guys so we’re pulled up to the boat here cuz I got a fishing trip coming up and I got to get everything ready, but we’re going to Go over some towing numbers, verse, the gas and I’m going to show you my numbers from the diesel, and it’s really going to probably surprise you.

So here we go the gas 7.3 L. When I was towing the boat. We were only getting about it’s only about 5,000 lb and we were only getting about 72 miles to the gallon with the gas engine and uh. When we tow the RV I was probably getting about the same.
It was close, seven about 7 to 8 miles per per gallon, just depending on, like you know how long I traveled, you know what speed or whatever, but it wasn’t a lot but towing this boat with the diesel. This is what I’m getting I’m getting 8
4 four miles per gallon on this trailer and with the gas 7.3. The best I was ever getting was about 20 miles, a gallon going about 55 miles an hour on a long stretch with no stop and go, and this is, I want to share with you. My average fuel economy for the diesel – and this is what I’m getting 14.

miles per gallon and that’s just average that’s highway and city and both, but with towing the boat with the diesel. It’S basically from here to the bait shop, to the ramp and then back to here, so we’re not going a lot of highway or we’re not pulling it very far. I haven’t. We haven’t done any big trips with the boat, yet so that’s just basically, city pulling with the diesel is 8.4, and you see people always talking about how they’re getting like 24 miles to the gallon with the diesel yeah.

That’S if you have like the regular stock tires, you don’t change anything out like the trimmer valance, like we changed out the trimmer valance and if you keep the stock air dam, and you don’t put 35 inch tires on there, yeah you’re going to get better fuel Mileage and it’s going to suffer a little bit if you make some of these modifications, but that’s not a huge difference between the gas and the diesel. And when you hear people claim these, like outrageous numbers of that they’re getting when they’re towing they’re, either one lying or two, it’s you’re, going downhill with the wind on a 300 mile stretch with no stop lights and no stop signs. If you ever have to do any stop and going or get into traffic, it is greatly going to diminish your fuel economy and obviously we’re not getting a ton better with the diesel. But it is better with two to if we only get two to three more miles per gallon with the diesel. That’S still over 100 miles per tank, we’re going to get between fillups all right, so the fuel economy is not that much better, but the another big benefit of the diesel is the diesel exhaust brake.

Of course, if you’re going downhill somewhere and you got a heavy load that is going to help, you is going to save your brakes, probably give you a little more stability, going downhill, pulling a load and if that’s something, that’s really concerned for you, then yeah diesel Is probably the best thing for you? So if our gas Superduty was a one- ton and we had that big fuel tank, I probably would have kept it and not buy this bought the diesel, but I’m happy with the diesel. It does a great job. It’S the one ton. We got 4,000 lbs of payload.

Hopefully it’s going to last us a long time. This is the last truck I bought for a good. While you know when people say that one is better than the other. Like I said, it’s just a tool, and you just get whatever tool – is best fits your budget and can do the job all right for anybody has a fit about what I showed for the miles per gallon. We were getting at 14.

, whatever it was. You know. That’S for city and highway. We just ran 180 mile trek round trip going about 55 60 miles an hour, very few, stop lights and stop signs very few and uh reset the trip meter, and this is what our average is. We are getting 19
9 and we’re seeing close to 20 before so you know it varies just depending on how you drive.

I just figured I’d throw that in here before we end this video as far as unequivocally, which one is better gas or diesel, it is completely what is best for you. That’S all that matters, and I hope you guys understand that, and it doesn’t matter if you get one or the other if it works for you, it’s the tool for the job, then you’ll be happy. Hope that makes sense thanks for coming along if you’re into trucks travel, full-time, RV life hit that subscribe button notification bell all that fancy jazz give this video a big thumbs up shows us. You appreciate the content cuz. We appreciate you guys – hopefully we’ll see you guys in the next video until then, And in chitty city, bang, bang, city, bang, bang.