Should we buy a used Ford or Chevy truck? Husband was a military mechanic and can do most of his own work. Which is easiest to work on?

Background: husband's timing belt just went out on his 02 Nissan Frontier (that's his fault--he thought he had a chain for some reason and never got it replaced the whole 200k miles he's had it). We're currently waiting for the call to let us know how bad the damage is once they get inside… Odds are, it's going to cost 6-10x the value of the vehicle to fix.

We prefer Toyota or Honda--however, because we live in the South, the import cars are more expensive to fix and he has a hard time finding parts for his Nissan locally, meaning he can't fix them himself and has to go to Nissan dealership.

I'm looking at used trucks in case we have to go the route of replacement. We have a very small budget… Like, 12k is pushing it. I see that used Chevy and Ford are the cheapest prices for used, even some 2010 models for 10grand.

TLDR: Which make is the easiest for DIY maintenance and repair?

Buy a Toyota Tundra with under 70,000 miles on it. Replace the timing belt. He'll never have to work on it again for at least 100,000 miles except for routine maintenance. In comparison, he'll end up with a lot of repairs to do on the American trucks unless you can afford a Chevy 2500 diesel with Alison transmission. I'm guessing that you can't.

The Nissan isn't worth fixing.
Most men that know how to work on trucks also have a preference between Chevy, Dodge and Fords. How about asking him what he would rather work on?