The price is great.
I'm a Chevrolet guy myself, but I've owned trucks from all of the three. What I've found:
Chevrolet/GMC They're solid, and unkillable. If you ever do kill one somehow, just fix it up and keep going. My current truck is a 1987 R10 Custom Deluxe. The 305 will outpull my Ford 300, and still gets 20 MPG on the highway (14 towing). My father abandoned it for 9 years, and I was able to fix it for less than $500. Parts are everywhere, and they're cheap. I personally prefer the square bodies (73-87), but the GMT400 was a nice truck, too (We had a 1989 Scottsdale 2500- it too was unkillable).
Ford They make a good truck... if you can pay a mechanic. We owned a 1992 F250 that we used to pull heavy loads. It had the 5.8 and the automatic. We got it to 369k miles before the tranmission quit. It was a nice truck, but I never really liked it that much. It felt too high for me. The Ford was reliable, but we always needed a mechanic when something went wrong.
I also own a 1995 F-150 with the 300. The 300 is an overrated piece of garbage in my mind. My 305 Chevrolet will outpull it all day long. The Chevrolet has the 2.76 Rear End, too (The worst option available). We towed 5000# with both. The loads were both straw bales, and distributed the same. The Ford could pull the load at 40MPH tops. On hills, I was in 2nd gear (Manual trans), doing 20 MPH. The Chevrolet was happily doing 45-50 on the hills. On the flats, I cruised at 60-62 MPH. The truck could have given me more. The Ford couldn't.
Dodge We have a 1992 Dakota with the 3.9L V6. We've pulled 4000# with it, and could do highway speeds. The transfer case broke last fall, and I put a junkyard one on. The Dodge wasn't hard to work on. The only problem was finding parts- there were fewer Dodges sold than Fords or GMs, so parts are more of a rarity (Though not that bad- ever try to find parts for a Jeep J20?). The insurance costs can be higher on some Dodges, too. I work in the same building as an Allstate agent. He said that the cheapest trucks to insure were Fords and Chevrolets.
I'd own another Chevrolet or a Dodge. I'm through with Ford, though. I want to do my own work, and Ford's systems get in the way of that. GM wouldn't give the designers money. Dodge didn't have the money. Ford went ahead, though. Everything is 10 steps harder than it needs to be.
For $1400, though, it sounds like a good deal.
< /Rant>
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