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Go visit the folks at http://www.titantalk.com.

Mars had one & sold it to go back to the Chevy Silverado. He said the Silverado was more comfortable.
Personally, I didn't care either way. They both consume way too much gas, however.

I've never cared for the exaggerated chrome trim on the front end of most of the Titans I've seen. I drive a Nissan myself (2002 Pathfinder SE 4WD) and I am suitably impressed with Nissan's ability to make horsepower from a V6 engine. On the other hand, fuel economy isn't exactly their long suit, and it doesn't surprise me that the Titan's V8 isn't any better. I've only owned one pickup truck in my life—a 1995 Dodge Dakota purchased new—and in the long run it just isn't my cup of tea. I prefer an SUV. Granted, it won't haul as much stuff, but for the 99.99999% of the time I'm driving when I'm not hauling stuff, it is way more comfortable, practical, and roomy. My dog likes it too. For the .00001% of the time when I need to haul stuff, I can tow up to 6,000 lbs in a rented trailer. Plus, the "stuff" in the back of my SUV doesn't get wet in the rain or bake under direct sunlight. My Nissan has 130,000 miles on it right now and still runs like a champ. I'm going to drive it until the doors fall off of it. But when it finally gives up the ghost, I probably won't replace it with another Nissan. I'd like to try one of those Jeep Wrangler Unlimited SUVs next.

I have two BIL's who own Titans and love them. Only downsides that I know about are:

1. Gas mileage: It's not as good as most other 5.4L V-8's out there....and there's no smaller engine offered like the other makes have. If you're OK with that, it won't be a problem.

2. Interior Room: Compared with my F150 Crew, the Titan Crew is much smaller inside. Lots of space wasted with interior moulding. Reminded me a lot of the difference b/t the Hummer H2 and the Suburban in that regard.

3. Parts Availability: I owned a Frontier before I got the F150. It was a great truck....but, if I had to put it in for repairs, I would have to add an extra day to the repair time just waiting for parts (I live in a rural area....closest dealers were Ford or Chevy). When it came time to trade up, I went with the Ford simply so I could get it fixed quicker in my area. My BIL's live in urban areas (Bryan/College Station & Katy), so it's not as much a problem for them.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FnrIobm_dpM

The above link is to only 1 in the Ford series "The Truth About Trucks".
There are many more to watch in this series, all presumably found on Youtube or a Ford website.

When you watch the whole series, you will see the various aspects of truck engineering
with Fords compared against all other full size truck brands.

It would seem hard not to choose a Ford after you've watched all these.

The Titan would be nice since not everyone has one, so the styling is more unique.
It seems that there are a lot of Titans around here (North Texas), but I had read that their national
market penetration has not met Nissan's expectations.

If you go with a Toyota Tundra, it comes with an optional sliding rear window. Not just the left/right kind,
but the style where the entire movable part of the rear windshield moves DOWN and out of sight.

When Dodge came out with some new kind of Cummins diesel, the warranty claims were outrageous.
Dodge was replacing Ram automatic trannies in large numbers. Reason? - The Cummins were putting out so much
torque that they were tearing up the AT's. Chrysler had under-engineered the AT's.

I would not trust a Dodge as far as I could throw it, but the idea of a Hemi V8 is kind of appealing.
Of course I've always liked Ford - until I bought my current LEMON of a Ford Ranger.
It's Nissan Frontier, 4 door, with the 261 HP engine, stick shift, next time for me. AFAIK, it's the only 4 door pickup
sold in the US that you can get with a stick shift. The Toyota Tacoma can be had with a stick, but only in the
slightly expanded cab, not the full 4 door.

Good luck in whatever you get - keep us posted on this thread.

SIA

surprise_i'm_armed wrote:It's Nissan Frontier, 4 door, with the 261 HP engine, stick shift, next time for me. AFAIK, it's the only 4 door pickup
sold in the US that you can get with a stick shift. The Toyota Tacoma can be had with a stick, but only in the
slightly expanded cab, not the full 4 door.

Good luck in whatever you get - keep us posted on this thread.

SIA

As I mentioned above, I have a 2002 Pathfinder SE 4WD, which is essentially the SUV body on a Frontier chassis with fundamentally the same engine and transmission options. Mine has 240 hp and 265 ft lbs of torque. One of the reasons I would not replace my Nissan with a new Nissan when that times comes is that the way Nissan got the extra horsepower out of the newest versions of their venerable 6 cylinder engine was to bump the compression way up and require higher octane fuel—ensuring higher cost of operation. In doing so, their fuel economy either remained unchanged or went down a bit, so it accomplished exactly what?

Other vehicles in the class that I might be interested in all get roughly the same fuel economy that I'm getting now with my older vehicle, but at least they will run on regular gas.

TAM:

Well, that's some fresh information for me. The Frontier with the 4.0 L, 261 HP engine is rated at 16 MPG City,
20 MPG highway. But if it requires premium, that makes the total fuel cost go way up.

Although the Frontier is currently at the top of my list, I'm also considering going with either a small SUV (Kia Sorento)
or a Honda Fit. The Fit's are cavernous for an economy car when you fold down the back seats, and of course who has
more bulletproof reliability than Honda?

Another contender for "roomy but economical" would be a Scion van. Sometimes I think they look cool, other times I think
they are kind of gawky. A design feature on the current ones that irks me is that the back bumper contains only 1 backup
light on the driver's side. It looks unbalanced. A driver needs a backup light on the passenger side too, IMHO.

SIA

SIA

According to Toyota's website the Double cab is available with a manual transmission in their 4x4 version with a 4 liter v6.
I have been eyeballing one of these for quite sometime. It is not available in the 2 wheel drive version however.


remember 4x4 doesn't mean you won't get stuck it just means you'll be further from the house when it happens.

Seeker Two: When I got my Titan the only other truck with more interior room was the F250 Super Crew. I guess they have all caught up now.

To the rest regarding the difference between regular and premium gas. I used to think it was a big deal and when regular gas was $1 and premium was $1.20 that 20% was a big deal. However, with regular gas at $3.59 and premium around $3.99 this is only an 11% difference now and not as big a deal. BTW, whatever happened to the different octane levels only being .10 cents different?

C-dub wrote:Seeker Two: When I got my Titan the only other truck with more interior room was the F250 Super Crew. I guess they have all caught up now.

To the rest regarding the difference between regular and premium gas. I used to think it was a big deal and when regular gas was $1 and premium was $1.20 that 20% was a big deal. However, with regular gas at $3.59 and premium around $3.99 this is only an 11% difference now and not as big a deal. BTW, whatever happened to the different octane levels only being .10 cents different?

pretty sure it was all supply and demand differences. I'm not sure how many vehicles required higher octane back when prices were lower, other than performance built 350's driven by people who knew it would knock more. Now that all these higher end foreign cars and higher compression ratio units are out there and seen more often, I see it as the ability to get more sales, therefore, why not just go on up a little bit more, right? As more and more engines are designed as variable valve timing engines, I'd expect to see the number rise even more in the future.