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Some good points made by all.
Vskid,
It may be a bit heavier than my 2500HD. The Curb Weight and Gross Weight are within spitting distance of 3/4 and 1 tons of a couple generations back. I think Nissan just went really conservative on the tow/haul ratings, but for as much as this thing weighs they could have at least fit a fully floating rear axle in there.
I think in their quest for between ½ and ¾ ton they skirted the line in the wrong direction a few times. I would take a bit lighter frame and heavier axle, like the heavy half’s or light three quarters of yesteryear.
Bandit,
It is definitely trying to imitate the ¾ tons. I don’t know that conventional half ton transmissions and axles would have held up to the Cummins low end torque though. I think that is the crux of what drove the weight so high.
Hersbird,
If you did all highway driving based on 19.5 and 17 you could see up to a 750 gallon savings at 100k miles, but you are right the 10%-15% improvement still isn’t the sweeping improvement that was expected for such an expensive option.
Cripple Rooster,
Yeah, for the truck to really compete in the half ton segment the inline four diesels make more sense, especially to reduce the strain on down the powertrain and hopefully therefore the weight of the overall vehicle.
Any “truck” transmission with a granny low first with a decent overdrive would pair nicely with this engine. The engine appears to have a standard SAE bellhousing with an adapter ring to mate to the Aisin, so with the help of readily available SAE adapters you could bolt up pretty much any transmission you wanted, so long as you could make the computer not freak out. This would probably shave off a decent amount of weight right there.
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