Ram has come out swinging for the fences this year with an updated Heavy Duty pickup truck line. The new 2025 Ram 2500 and 3500 trucks are beastly at hauling tens of thousands of pounds while making you feel like the truck isn’t even breaking a sweat. But what is it even like making this pickup truck tow so much weight? I pulled various trailers weighing up to 19,500 pounds along one of the toughest grades in America to find out. The results of making a Ram HD work hard were enlightening, and it’s clear there’s a good reason to buy one of these opposed to something vintage.
America’s pickup truck manufacturers are locked in a ridiculous arms race. Each manufacturer wants to claim that it has a “best-in-class” something, and that claim is usually followed with some absurd number. Today’s pickup trucks are ridiculously capable. If you buy the correct configuration of Ford Super Duty F-350, you can haul a gooseneck trailer weighing a whopping 40,000 pounds. That’s more than you can tow with any standard driver’s license in America, and yet you can do it with a big pickup truck.
Ram’s trucks are very nearly just as insane. A properly-equipped 2025 Ram 3500 Heavy Duty can haul a 36,610-pound gooseneck or a 23,000-pound conventional trailer. The Ram 2500 Heavy Duty is also pretty sweet, able to haul up to 20,000 pounds total. Payloads also get really hefty, where a Ram 3500 gasser can haul up to 7,660 pounds and the diesel can still haul a respectable 6,050 pounds. The best a 2500 HD can haul is 3,970 pounds when equipped with a gas engine.
But these are really a bunch of numbers. How is this like in real life?
How The Sausage Is Made
(Full Disclosure: Ram invited me out to Las Vegas, Nevada, to take its new Heavy Duty lineup on what was more or less an intense 24-hour gauntlet of testing. Ram paid for my travel, lodging (in a weird casino town), good food, and fuel.)
Truckmakers love to brag about their topline capacity numbers, but it always needs to be noted that the advertised numbers work only for very specific trucks. This is a fact regardless of what badge is on your grille. You can’t just pull a 36,610-pound gooseneck with any random Ram 3500 HD that you pull off of the lot. Thankfully, truck manufacturers offer handy charts to tell you what each configuration can do.
Trucks do get really granular in their configurations, so these charts can sometimes be overwhelming. Here’s how you figure out if the Ram Heavy Duty you want can safely tow the load you want to haul:
As you can see, the best trucks for payload have lighter gas engines while the best trucks for towing will have diesel engines and their own rear axle ratios. This should help you pick the optimal Heavy Duty for your needs.
At the event, Ram configured its trucks how most of its customers use them. Despite the crazy high ratings of today’s trucks, Ram says most of its HD truck owners use only perhaps up to 60 percent or so of their truck’s capability. Ram’s Heavy Duty truck buyers are towing their project cars, big fifth wheel campers, and heavy equipment. Others are plopping down 2,000 pounds of landscaping materials in their beds or hauling racecars to the track.
Ram says its trucks are as capable as they are thanks largely in part to the new 2025 Ram Heavy Duty’s marriage of engine and transmission. The optimal setup, the one the vast majority of buyers choose, is the 6.7-liter Cummins straight-six diesel. Some 70 percent of Ram 2500 customers go diesel and nearly all 3500 customers get the diesel. The Cummins 6.7 may not have an icon status like the 5.9, but it’s a legend in its own right. Here’s what Ram and Cummins changed for 2025:
Working closely with Cummins, the 6.7-liter High-Output inline-6-cylinder Turbo Diesel engine boasts several improvements in drivability, fuel economy, durability, startability, serviceability, and noise, vibration and harshness (NVH).
A redesigned block and head, robust heavy-duty pistons, new performance intake manifold, a new turbo, larger intake/exhaust valves for improved port flow and a higher-pressure fuel system enhance the diesel’s hallmark durability and efficiency. To make service easier, and improve air flow and performance, the new Cummins engine uses improved intake port geometry for top feed injectors, top load lubrication and integrated fuel filters. Helping customers in extremely cold environments, Ram Heavy Duty trucks equipped with the Cummins High-Output Turbo Diesel use glow plugs. Noise, vibration and harshness were reduced using helical transmission gears.
The new 2025 Ram 2500 and 3500 Heavy Duty integrates the TorqueFlite HD eight-speed automatic transmission that features a lower cruise engine rpm and improved performance on graded roads.
Plus my commentary on this pairing from my recent review:
That new fuel system includes a fuel pump that helps diesel fire into the cylinders at 30,000 PSI. That new TorqueFlight also replaces the previous AISIN AS69RC six-speed and the Chrysler 68 RFE. The HD 8 transmission has a relatively tall 3.42 rear axle ratio for better fuel economy and a relatively short 4.89 ratio first gear which helps with starts while loaded. When the truck is unloaded, it starts in second gear.
The big notes, Ram thinks, is the groundswell of power — 430 HP and 1,075 lb-ft of torque from the Cummins High Output powerplant. These aren’t the best figures in the industry, but Ram brags that it’s the highest torque you’ll get in any standard diesel truck engine. Aside from the mad power, the new engine tweaks are said to make the truck quieter. Likewise, the TorqueFlight transmission was tweaked to work perfectly with the Cummins so that you’re pretty much always in the engine’s sweet spot when you need the power most.
The Davis Dam Test
Ram wanted to prove that by taking us to the infamous Davis Dam grade. For years, automakers have made wild claims about what their trucks could tow. Sure, while you might have been fine on flat ground, some truck owners in the past struggled to get their rigs through long grades without issues. The SAE J2807 standard, which has been applied to all tow vehicles 2013 and newer, ensures that if an automaker says that a truck can pull 36,000 pounds, that truck will pull that weight up a mountain in scorching hot temperatures.
As I said in my main review, the Davis Dam test requires a truck to climb Arizona State Route 68 between Bullhead City and Golden Valley. It’s an 11.4-mile run wavering around a 6 percent grade that sees the driver climbing their rig 3,500 feet. The test calls for 100-degree Fahrenheit or higher outside temperatures with the truck’s air-conditioning on full blast. Minimums for this test include a single-rear-wheel truck hauling up the grade at 40 mph or better while dual-rear-wheel trucks have to do 35 mph or faster. There’s other criteria, but if you’re driving a brand-new heavy duty pickup from any brand, rest assured you’ll be hauling some serious loads up Davis Dam with ice cubes blowing on you. That’s the whole point of SAE J2807.
I started my adventure with the load I think most readers here would probably haul.
Perfect At Hauling That New Crapbox Home
First, I saddled up with a 2025 Ram 2500 Laramie. This is the truck that Ram says is its volume model. If you go to a dealership looking for a Ram HD, chances are you’re leaving with one of these. Personally, the Laramie was my favorite truck in terms of aesthetics. The new Ram HD grille looks shockingly ugly on the Rebel and Power Wagon, but I love it here. Making the grille surround body color makes the Ram 2500 a pretty handsome truck.
Perhaps even more handsome was the Laramie’s load. Strapped down to a trailer was a Dodge Ram SRT-10 from the Stellantis historic fleet. I’m told this truck has something like 17,000 miles and it’s still riding on its original tires. Sadly, I couldn’t drive that one, and believe me, I tried.
Ram believed that between truck and trailer we were looking at a total weight of close to 8,000 pounds. This is more than the about 5,200 pounds I pulled when I brought my 1948 Plymouth Special DeLuxe home from North Carolina with a 2024 Ford Super Duty F-250 Power Stroke. A Ram 2500 HD can tow up to 20,000 pounds, so this setup was easy for the truck.
In my drive, I found that the truck still accelerated with gusto and the already good Ram ride comfort was improved with the addition of that tongue weight back there. I pulled the SRT-10 through the tiny city-ish area of Laughlin and I never lost a bit of confidence fitting in that tight casino traffic. This confidence continued throughout the entirety of the Davis Dam grade.
There’s a tired car journalist cliche that a truck can tow a trailer like it’s not even there. I’ve said it many times before but you always feel a trailer back there. You always hear the trailer back there. It’s never not behind you. But the Ram 2500 is the closest I’ve found to making that claim accurate. The Ram 2500 Cummins is entirely unbothered by the load. The truck climbed the 6 percent grade like it was an easy Sunday drive. There was so much extra grunt on hand that you’d probably want to think twice about your load-strapping job before dropping the hammer.
The Davis Dam run also gave me a chance to experience how these trucks handle the downgrade after the summit. In the past, you might have downshifted and nursed the brakes. The Ram 2500 has an exhaust brake. This device closes off the engine exhaust route and uses the built-up exhaust pressure to slow the engine (and thus truck) down. The Ram HD trucks allow you to just have the exhaust brake on or to set it to an automatic mode.
If it’s set to on, the exhaust brake will always be on and, depending on your load, will slow you down without any braking at all. If you choose the automatic mode, it works as a sort of cruise control. You use a little bit of brake pedal action to get you to your desired speed, then the exhaust brake system will try to keep you at this speed for the entire descent.
It’s here I’ll note that the Ram’s radar cruise control also works when towing massive trailers, so you can use all of these systems to make hauling huge weights scary easy.
I came out of the other end of towing the SRT-10 quite impressed. The F-250 I drove last year hauled my Plymouth with grace. The Ram 2500 pulled the heavier pickup truck with the finesse of a ballerina. Well, a 7,000-pound-ish ballerina, anyway.
Great For RVing
My next choice was another incredibly common setup. People love using HD trucks to haul fifth wheel campers. Ram’s choice for this setup was a 2025 Ram 3500 hitched up to a Coachmen Brookstone 318RLL. This fifth wheel is a part of that somewhat trend of RVs with rear porches and amusingly, a lot of the journalists at the event didn’t even know that was a thing. Anyway, this trailer weighs 13,153 pounds completely unloaded and Ram figured it was at maybe 13,500 pounds as it sat at the event.
This isn’t much more weight than I towed with the 2500, but now it was shaped like a brick. RVs can be somewhat challenging to tow because those huge walls can act like sails when you’re driving on a highway.
Something interesting about this setup is that, if I were at home in Illinois, I wouldn’t be able to legally drive it. My state imposes a GVWR limit of 16,000 pounds before you have to upgrade the weight class on your license. In practice, it means that, depending on your tow vehicle, you’re limited to a trailer of about 10,000 pounds before you need to upgrade your license. The trailer surpasses that easily.
This is rightfully so. Towing a fifth wheel isn’t like hitching up to your family’s pop-up. These trailers are huge in every metric. They take up most of a lane, have epic amounts of rear end swing when you turn, and oh yeah, you can’t just do normal turns with these things. If you turn too short you’ll take out another car, a traffic light, or drive off of the road. You also have to take your time and slow down. Honestly, it’s amazing that, in most states, the license that lets you drive a Smart also lets you tow this huge thing.
Anyway, the 2025 Ram 3500’s handling of the camper was exceptional. The truck’s steering was (relatively) tight and accurate, so I never felt like I needed to saw to keep the thing in the lane. I adored Ram’s thus far class-exclusive power blind spot mirrors. No more having to walk to the other side of the truck to set the lower mirror!
Once again, the truck remained a bit of a hot rod, even with the camper on the back. I would caution against doing full throttle starts while towing a camper. The Cummins torque hits like a sledgehammer and if you have too much fun you’ll get to your campground and probably have to rebuild the camper’s interior. It tugs just that hard. The Cummins has so much grunt on deck that doing the 50 mph to 65 mph speed limit on the grade wasn’t an issue at all. If I were crazy, there was still more than enough power un the diesel to have passed vehicles in the left lane. I didn’t do that, but rumor has it one journalist got over 80 mph out there with the camper on the back.
Going up Davis Dam, I encountered a crosswind. The dually truck’s stability was impressive here. I felt the wind hitting the trailer, but it was effortless to keep the truck and trailer on track. Going down the grade was equally as easy with the exhaust brake in automatic mode. I hovered over the brake pedal, but the truck did all of the work in managing downhill speed.
I think I have to come back to a word I said earlier. Towing the camper with the Ram 3500 was effortless. I felt comfortable in my seat, the suspension was nice and loaded, therefore smooth, and the camper was just along for the ride. I could have driven the Ram 3500 all day with the camper on the back. That’s how comfortable and confident I was. Heck, I bet I would have been fine trying to take on city traffic in this thing.
I see why people buy dually trucks and fifth wheels. This setup is supremely nice to drive.
Towing At The Legal Limit
Perhaps the holy grail towing setup at the event was towing the Case L630 tractor sitting on a Liberty trailer with a 2025 Ram 3500 Limited. Ram’s reps believe the total weight of this setup was in the ballpark of 19,500 pounds. Once again, this tractor and trailer were chosen based on input from Ram owners. The brand’s customers really do hitch tractors up to 3500 dually trucks and hit the road, so they wanted us to experience that.
Besides, this was about the most weight most journalists there could legally tow. The loaded trailer plus the truck bumps you right up to that 26,000-pound weight limit for a standard driver’s license in Nevada. Anything more and Ram would have needed to take us to a private proving ground. That’s what Ford did to allow me to tow 40,000 pounds with a F-450. While towing that much weight was a bucket list item, what Ram did was more realistic. Things are way different on a public road than in a largely controlled proving ground.
Towing the tractor was a different beast. The truck worked noticeably harder on this towing job than the others, but that’s not surprising given the weight. All of the advice of towing a large fifth wheel camper is only amplified here. Take your time, drive slow, and be cognizant of your surroundings. Big trucks can be dangerous if you’re not careful. Plan ahead in areas where you might interact with pedestrians, cyclists, and smaller cars.
Thankfully, these Ram trucks had great cameras that help you see beyond the sides of your trailer and to see what’s in front of the sky-high hood. Use them, they do a great job!
Towing the low Liberty trailer presented me with some special challenges. Unlike the camper, which rides super high, it’s actually really easy to bottom out the low Liberty trailer. So, not only do you have to be aware of your surroundings, but you have to enter and exit lots at an angle. It’s the same deal if there’s a large bump in an intersection. Again, take things slow.
The real fun happened on the Davis Dam run. I joined the right lane and put the pedal down. Acceleration was still strong and once I reached cruising speed, it took relatively little “throttle” input to maintain that momentum. Like how in every previous towing test, the truck’s transmission seamlessly chose whatever gear was necessary to maintain about 2,500 RPM. This, I’m told, was the engine’s sweet spot for hauling up a grade. Sure enough, the engine moved with the most alacrity when it was right there.
In a way, the heavier tractor was easier to pull than the camper because the crosswinds didn’t seem to hit it as hard. I monitored the truck’s vitals through all of this too and everything seemed entirely unbothered. The transmission was locked in at 160 degrees, coolant never went above 210 degrees, and the engine didn’t even seem like it was breaking a sweat.
The downhill section was perhaps even more impressive. The exhaust brake didn’t seem concerned with the weight of a tractor on the truck’s back. I needed to occasionally push the brake pedal to slow down due to curves and an old truck going super slow with a camper, but the truck did most of the slowing.
Once I got back to base, I made a silly realization. For years I’ve heard about how infamous Davis Dam is and how grueling it is. Sure, my drive never got hotter than 80 degrees and I wasn’t maxing out these trucks. But the Rams handled the grade so well that the drive was almost boring. Don’t get me wrong, I have tons of fun driving any cool truck, but the road itself didn’t feel impressive. I credit that to the wild capabilities and comfort of the Ram 2500 and Ram 3500. Maybe I’ll have to come back and do the grade in my diesel Smart Fortwo to really appreciate it.
Expensive, And People Will Buy Them
So, let’s talk pricing again. The 2025 Ram HD lineup starts with the basic Ram 2500 Tradesman 4×2 Regular Cab with a 6.4-liter Hemi V8 gas engine for $45,565. The cheapest diesel is the 2025 Ram 2500 Tradesman with Crew Cab, the 6.7 Cummins and a 6’4″ box for $62,775. A well-equipped 2025 Ram 2500 Laramie like the one I used to tow the SRT-10 will cost you around $85,000. If you want a Ram 3500 Limited 4×4 like the one I used to haul the tractor, that’s about $102,000.
Sadly, that’s the reality of big trucks today. You need mega dough to have fun with large toys. You won’t find respite at Ford or GM either because their trucks are just as expensive, if not more expensive. Yet, at the same time, these automakers pile these trucks full of luxury car features and, if you get something like a Longhorn, tooled leather. So, maybe the luxury car price makes sense.
I also see these things continuing to fly off of lots. Today’s trucks offer levels of comfort and capability that you cannot match with a stock truck from over two decades ago. Yes, you do have to deal with modern emissions equipment and fiddling around with modern maintenance, but for many, the trade is worth it.
One thing is for sure. If you’re looking for a huge truck to handle even larger loads, I don’t think you’ll be disappointed. That Cummins, that transmission, and that comfort work better than any other threesome than I’ve ever heard of.
Wonder if they’ll start offering the new Cummings “B6.7 Octane” engine in the RAMs in the next year or two?
The idea that some old retiree that’s never driven anything bigger than a Toyota Camry can drive something this massive down the road without any additional experience or training and kill us all on the highway at 80 miles an hour is terrifying.
At this point I’m thinking that the next step is for folks to start buying Freightliners to tow their giant houses around and commute to work.
They already do. It’s called the “SportChassis P4XL“, it a pickup truck on a Freightliner chassis, with either the DD8 or Cummins ISL engine, and an Allison TRV transmission.
Curb Weight: 18,352 lbs.
I’ve always wanted to see something like these rigs do a panic stop.
I’m not really all that certain that I want some mouth-breather without a CDL attempting to tow a 40,000 pound trailer just because their vehicle is capable.
Maybe, just maybe, drivers licenses should start to require additional endorsements for some of these larger payload and towing capabilities. It really comes down to safety at the end of the day. Safety for the operator, and safety for other motorists to know that the operator is qualified for handling high-tonnage loads.
Honestly, this seems reasonable.
I’m not sure most US drivers are qualified to handle low tonnage loads. Would love to see better training and licensing across the board.
FACTS!
My state and most require a CDL if you’re over 26k or something close to that.
Required but enforced?
Even then, given what I see around me they may stay under the 26k pounds but, did they hook up trailer brakes (seen that cable hanging many times).
Did they upgrade the brakes on the massive wheel size up?
Another fun one is they think just because big truck it can pull the massive trailer with no additional weight equilizing or sway controls.
It’s probably not heavily enforced for private vehicles, but I’ve heard it’s pretty well enforced for commercial operators. As you point out, even with a GCWR under 26k, that’s still a lot of weight and probably should require some additional training, although I’m doubtful that would make a huge difference in safety.
I always thought the 26k rule only applies if you are driving for commercial purposes?
I have seen some semi truck based RVs that are well over 26,000 lbs. One that comes to mind is a company called Powerhouse Coach that builds RVs based on Class 8 trucks. Their website specifically mentioned that a CDL is not required if the vehicle is used as a private RV, even if you are towing a heavy trailer (their website says the RV’s GVWR is ~54k lbs. and can tow an additional 40k lbs.).
I hope their website isn’t accurate (it is obviously a terrible idea for drivers without a CDL to drive a 50k lb. RV, much less a 50k lbs. RV towing a 40k lb. trailer), but I have seen other sources that claim the 26k limit does not apply to RVs unless they are used for a commercial purpose.
(edited: I just checked my state’s laws and I see that RVs are specifically exempted from needing a CDL. The only requirement for “motor coaches” is that they adhere to dimensional limitations including a height of less than 13.5 feet, length of less than 40 feet (excluding trailer), and a width of 102 inches or less; there is no mention of a weight limit, so it appears the 26k law does NOT apply here in Florida… which is mildly terrifying.)
In my state (Missouri) it’s anything over 26k no mention of commercial operation or private, although there is a special licnese for farm use, that I believe allows you to exceed that on certan rural roads without a CDL. I can’t find an exemption for RV (powered or towed), but there may be one. I know other states have them, although I suspect many RV companies try to stay under that 26k, but some of those huge ones you mention are probably well over.
In my state, your “allowable” GCWR is tied to the vehicles license, and for 18k or over it’s actually stated on the vehicle license. If you tried to license a vehicle for over 26k I believe you have to show a CDL to get it. I have no idea if it’s heavily enforced, but I’ve always made sure to have the proper plate, even my newer midsize truck requires a step up from the standard plate to tow at it’s max rating.
If I had the money for a 5th wheel, I would buy something like this. A bit of overkill is not bad. Just add in the cost of the hitch install and get a good one.
I’ve learned that overkill is better than overheating on an uphill grade. Been there, don’t want to do that again.
Great writeup.
On the subject of the SAE J2807 standard, there are aspects to that standard that I find are downright stupid.
For example… why should the minimum required speed in the Davis Dam test be 40mph with single rear wheels but only 35mph with dual rear wheels?
Same deal for the acceleration/passing tests… why should should slower acceleration be “okay” just because you have dual rear wheels?
And why only a 20mph to stop test? Honestly what I want to see a 60-0 braking test when going DOWN the Davis Dam… done at least twice back to back.
When I’ve towed trailers, I was far more concerned about being able to stop than going/accelerating fast.
I consider the J2807 test flawed.
Too much emphasis on going fast, not enough emphasis on stopping/brake fade and an idiotic double-standard between SRW and DRW vehicles.
Agreed. It also feels weird to assess it this way to me. It’s like saying you’re not allowed to climb a small hill until you’ve summited K2 or something.
My Prius is rated to tow 2,000 pounds in Europe, but not tow-rated here. But I don’t even drive 80 mph to begin with, and every rental trailer I might use says to tow at 55!
Maybe it’s a good spot to test hill-starting with a load and just generally good “can it do it?” but it definitely feels like overkill to me.
Impressive feat of engineering for the trucks, though.
Do those front cameras come on automatically at low speeds? I feel like in cities that’d be fairly good mitigation for the pedestrian height problem.
To be fair, towing in the US Southwest during the summer (when everyone is trying to get somewhere cooler with the camper) is KILLER. I am glad that they are tested this way. Prius’s (PRII?) can’t tow their own selves up the hills without getting hot, much less with a trailer attached.
Prioraiiusesodes:
https://www.theautopian.com/is-the-plural-of-prius-prii-priora-or-prioraiiusesodes-comment-of-the-yesterday/
I have driven Rout 14ALT on the west side of the Big Horns a number of times and have seen multiple travel trailers in various states of disassembly. If is about 10-20 miles of between 7 and 9.5% grade. The worst was the remnants strewn across many yards of slope. There wasn’t any tow vehicle, so I assumed it had happened a while earlier and had been mostly taken care of.
The last time I went, a big full-ton pulling a big fifth-wheel down the mountain was pulled off to the side because the trailer brakes were literally on fire. The worst part for the owner is that he will likely need to hire somebody to get his trailer because I doubt what remained of the trailer brakes would let him descend safely.
Yeah when going on long downhill stretches, you can’t be stupid and continuously ride the brakes. Better to have short bursts of slowing down and then followed by coasting combined with engine braking to give the brakes a chance to cool down.
That is true, but it has its limits. A decently long segment of downhill at 9% might be beyond them. An owner with a big new rig might learn that lesson the hard way.
I also see these things continuing to fly off of lots.
Undoubtedly purchased by rural people who have plenty of room to park/store it and whatever they bought it to move on their own private or rented lands instead of all over public streets, right?
RIGHT?
These things are low key the default vehicle of choice for where I live (NW outer suburb of Phoenix, called Surprise, AZ). Lot of RV garages, tons of side by sides, huge parking lots.
Yes, the diesels have a much higher initial cost and increased maintenance, but the resale is MUCH higher than a gasser (as is capability).
So many questions…..First of all, the 3500 that you drove has a GVWR of 14,000 lbs and a payload of 5,530 lbs, according to your chart. So that means the truck weighs just under 8,500 lbs without a driver or any hitches, etc…If Ram says the tractor combo weighs 19,500 lbs, how does that not put your into CDL territory?
In my state, your license requirement is dictated by the weight rating of what your combination is, not the actual weight. So a 14,000 lbs GVWR truck could tow at most, a trailer with a 12,000 lbs GVWR. It is one reason why I still have my 2007 pickup, because its 11,800 lbs GVWR lets me pull my 14k trailers.
I personally don’t think CDL laws have kept up with capabilities of newer vehicles, but I’ve resigned myself to signing up for CDL school in the next 5 years or so.
Ram might have been using some fuzzy math to estimate the total weight of the truck and trailer. They told all of us the tractor and trailer was 19,500 pounds-ish and with the truck we were still supposedly in legal limits. But yeah, if you subtract payload from GVWR then the math technically doesn’t check out.
Sadly, I could not find a definitive weight for the Case tractor, or else I would have just calculated the weight by hand.
Actually, I need to issue an edit because I misread my state’s regulation. Illinois also classes its licenses based on GVWR. So, 16k GVWR is okay for my state’s Class D, and you’ll need to take a Class C test (rent a U-Haul) to get up to 26k.
Thanks. Great article.
Is that a hot tub on the back?!
Apparently it’s furniture that would otherwise be on a boat. Sadly, the camper was locked so I couldn’t do a tour of it!
Maybe a couch?
(in a weird casino town)
Laughlin/Bullhead City
BTW, did you say hey to Caleb?
I think Caleb was on a different wave than I was. It was sunny during my trip and his pics have an awful lot of clouds in them. 🙂
Not on a gas truck you don’t!
Too bad Ram didn’t have you tow with the Hemi. I get that they are showing off the new diesel, but a back to back comparison would have been nice.
As for the pricing, yes it sucks but one consolation is the high resale on these trucks, even with miles. If you’re going to trade your older truck in on a newer one, the price increases won’t hurt quite so badly. Plus incentives and discounts seem to be back with a vengeance.
Yeah, it would seem that Ram didn’t bother having us tow with the gassers since so few of them are sold, anyway. Of the 30 percent of 2500 buyers who get the gas engine, most of them are fleets.
Ah, the ol’ fleet special. Speccing a 1 ton pickup truck with the smallest possible engine available.
The PSD is the smallest engine Ford offers.
GM’s gasser is only 50 ccs smaller than its diesel.
True, it has gotten much better. For reference, the fleet I work with has a mid 90’s F350, actual crew cab (2 rows of vinyl benches) all strapped to the screaming power of a 5.0. I think on the GMT400’s you could even get a 3/4 ton with a 4.3
A small general contractor I used to work for bought a couple then-new, mid 2010s 2500 Ram “fleet specials” with the 6.4 Hemi. The only things I recall about it
-It was obnoxiously tall and putting things in the bed was a pain in the ass, I had to climb onto the rear tires to reach anything.
-Visibility from the cab was terrible (high hood/beltline, small glass). I found myself routinely sticking my head out the window when maneuvering with a trailer or even just parking the truck alone.
-It got like 4mpg if towing a ~10k mini excavator (maybe 12 or so empty). Like, shockingly poor. I’d driven a Triton V10 powered motorhome that got better fuel economy.
For comparison, my service truck at the time was a Chevy 4500 with the 6.6 duramax. It would do about 15mpg empty, and still 10-12 towing, and it was night and day more confident towing- despite having like 70 less HP than the gas.
The Hemi heavy duty trucks always sound like they have lifter tick too!
I can’t find good data but I’d bet pretty strongly that Ram has the highest diesel take rate of the three.
$12K is a pretty steep ask up front to also pay more for fuel and maintenance unless you really need the extra towing. It would not surprise me to see more movement toward gas on the consumer side as well.
Ram didn’t say how people buy its diesels compared to the competition, but I believe it. I can also see consumers beginning to lean back toward gas power one day. While I was not particularly jazzed by the Hemi 6.4 (at least driving it around unloaded + off-roading), Ford’s Godzilla V8 was brilliant.
I’m a fleet manager, and both for myself and other managers I talk to, fleets are DEF(pun intended)initely looking at gas powerplants instead of diesel in their lighter medium-duty and 1-ton trucks.
The crappy reliability of modern diesels of every size is especially hard on fleets because you need good uptime and having a quarter of your fleet at the dealership for emissions-related crap is a killer. It’s basically endemic in all makes and models, the DEF, SCR and particulate trap hardware/electronics are constant issues. And unlike the old days, you can’t just drive around with the CEL on, the engine will derate and you’ll find yourself in a 54K lb.garbage truck that won’t go over 15MPH.
And before anyone comments, I’m 100% for emissions controls, I’m old and remember smog alerts, 1/4 mile summer visibility and burning eyes. I just have issues with unreliable technology.
I’ve driven gas powered HD trucks; while they might get the job done, they are not enjoyable doing it. This is why my 1-ton truck is diesel powered. It’s also why my F-150 is not equipped with the 3.3L, even though it’s cheaper and usually would get the job done.
I personally would rather drive a Tradesman with a 6.7L than a Laramie with the 6.4L. But to each their own.
I made the exact opposite calculation buying a King Ranch 6.2 over an XLT 6.7 but that’s why they offer both.
Well you sort of do, even gassers are starting to suffer from increased emissions controls. Aggressive EGR, cylinder deactivation, direct injection, PZEV controls, etc all create maintenance challenges that didn’t used to exist. Some of it has gotten better, and is way less problematic than diesel emissions controls, but it should still be considered.
A lot of that stuff is thankfully not present on HD trucks, which have less strict regulations.
True, or at least a previous generation of that equipment. Seems to work much better once they’ve had a few years to work out the kinks.