re: Best trucks for the money, measured in cost per 10k miles of lifespan

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Turbos are awesome to me. But the reasoning for using turbos in these trucks is asinine to say the least. It's all to meet gov emissions standards but the trucks will never be run as docile as for the tests. So it's moot.

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I know people tend to hate CAFE standards just on principle but they have had the unintended consequence of ushering in the apogee of ICE performance. All that money carmakers have spent on turbos has developed unreal performance. My wife's DD has 617hp (underrated and more like 650+ at the crank when dynoed) and that would almost certainly never have happened if it weren't for the push in developing turbos.

Trucks are the perfect place for turbos. Manufacturers of medium and heavy duty trucks have known this for decades. The low end torque and wide flat torque plateau are perfect for trucks and not possible with a NA engine. In the end CAFE has created a serendipitous performance increase albeit with an increase in cost and complexity.

You can hate CAFE for the added cost and complexity but if performance is your primary metric I would argue CAFE has inadvertently pushed performance but even in the most skeptical view performance has increased in spite of CAFE.