[Derek Sutton]

I could really go on here having worked in both sales (recently) and service (currently). You will quickly find that your $30k is not going to go as far as you hope. The market has slacked off but used truck prices are still quite high. Realistically if you’re in the market for a Crew Cab you’re . looking at something 7 years old in the 200,000km range.

As mentioned, avoid the Rams for many reasons… Also avoid any trucks with wheel flares, cheapest and easiest way to hide rust (which commonly starts around the wheel wells. Also avoid and Chevy/ GMC with an 8 spd transmission, these were in the higher end trims in ‘17- ‘18 and fairly common in the 2019’s and 20’s, garbage transmission. I’m a fan of the Ford 5.0 and the 5.3L from General Motors.

Some other things to keep in mind, do you need a crew cab (4 full doors). As Double cabs (GM), Super Cabs (Ford) and Quad cabs (Ram) are all less expensive, yet often less desirable as they have smaller second row space. The ford Crew cabs have by far the most cab space if that is important to you.

My ideal truck would be a 2016- 2018 GMC/ Chevy with the 5.3L and 6 spd transmission, sub 100000km. These trucks have a good amount of newer technology and are still fairly simple.