It’s become apparent that while pickup sales are booming, not everyone in society is a fan of pickup trucks or perhaps the people that drive them. For whatever reason, they (the trucks) can occasionally be a bit polarizing. Sometimes people take issue with the size of the vehicles, or perhaps the load that is or is not being carried. Sometimes the need for the vehicle itself is questioned. Curiously, none of this ever seems to happen with mid-size sedans.
So we decided to try one of the larger truck offerings on the market, or more accurately, RAM decided that we should try one, so one appeared recently at my door for a week’s stay.
If this RAM 3500 looks vaguely familiar, that is because it was briefly featured on these pages a few months ago when I had the opportunity to sample the entire RAM HD line in a controlled environment with prescribed routes and limited time. At that opportunity, I liked what I experienced. Would those impressions hold up over a week’s time?
I decided that while this example is far beyond what I personally would likely ever use or need a truck for, I would use it for all of my driving that week. No matter how long or how short the journey, I’d be using this for it. I’m no tease, so I’ll tell you right now, after my week, that I don’t believe there is anybody sane that either buys or uses a truck like this one just because they want to.
They COULD, but I’d venture in virtually all cases, the drivers of trucks like this one-ton 3500 series (as opposed to the regular 1500 series trucks or even the 3/4 ton 2500 series), especially with the dually rear setup, own it because of a specific need for this or something extremely similar.
No, not every pickup is always full of cargo. But pretty much by definition, that could only be the case half the time, right? One is either taking cargo somewhere (and then has to come back), or is going somewhere without cargo to pick some up and bring it back. Nobody takes a full load of whatever from their home to someplace else and then brings it back (which they do with trailers however, such as a boat or a camper, but one doesn’t just cruise around aimlessly with those attached either).
Mine had a full tonneau cover on it so nobody could see what was in the 8-foot bed. Well, when I lowered the tailgate (either manually or very decadently with a push of a button on the keyfob and/or dashboard), I realized that the bed wasn’t empty. In fact it contained a fifth-wheel hitch apparatus so that I could tow massive amounts of cargo on a trailer or perhaps a house(trailer) itself, up to 35,100 pounds in fact.
In my week the CC effect was strong, I suddenly saw literally dozens of RAM 3500 duallys running around, most of them with trailers of one sort or another; be it a full load of cars, oil drilling equipment, lots of multi-horse trailers, and all kinds of others things. Conversely, I didn’t see too many of them just running to the grocery store or post office like I did.
Lest you think I just loafed around, let me disabuse you of that notion. I drove almost 500 miles this week – I did take two trips of some distance – first a trip to Golden for dinner, some 75 miles each way. Driving down I-25 was a revelation. The truck has tremendous grunt, in fact the 6.7 liter High Output Cummins Turbo Diesel in this one produces 1000 lb-ft of torque, enough to seriously push you back in your seat once the turbo is up to boil, the time to get from 60mph to well over the 75mph speed limit (and further) is startlingly small.
Besides the obvious power, what really stood out about this is how quiet it was. Not just in the truck but also standing beside it. I (and likely everyone) is well aware of how load a Cummins TurboDiesel 6cylinder engine is in an older Ram (or Dodge). Not so here. You can converse normally while standing right next to the running truck. Once inside, at idle it’s almost silent. At speed, you hear more wind noise than engine noise, and on throttle you hear a growl but nothing even remotely objectionable to someone that is for instance not a diesel fan. It is genuinely remarkable and makes me curious just how much sound deadening is in this truck.
The Aisin Heavy Duty 6-speed transmission worked quickly, quietly, and mostly imperceptibly to keep it in its powerband – with a redline at what appeared to be 3200 or so rpm it was shifting a fair amount. (By the way, is that the lowest redline of any current production vehicle?)
While I was supplied with a regular hitch as well I never found a good opportunity to tow anything but have no doubt that this truck would make short work of it. On the other hand, driving this truck while unloaded pointed out some obvious shortcomings that would stop normal people from driving it “just because” – first would be the fuel mileage.
While objectively impressive for such a large and capable vehicle, my 13mpg overall average (about 75 percent highway/freeway) is frightening with diesel at $2.85/gallon (which is relatively cheap here compared to lots of other locations). Second would be the ride. On a good road or even a not so good road, the ride wasn’t bad. Understandably firm maybe, but not bad.
However, hitting expansion joints, especially at the beginning or end of bridges made the while thing just rear up and bounce hard. To be able to haul and tow what it can, obviously the shocks need to be set up to handle the potential weight. When unladen that makes itself known and felt.
My other “big” trip was up to Laramie, also about 70 miles away. I’ve taken this particular trip on Hwy287 in over a dozen different vehicles over the years. This truck, bar none, provided the most pleasurable possible way that I’ve experienced yet.
Going up to 7185 feet of elevation didn’t faze the truck at all, there was constant power, I was able to pass at will, semi’s coming the other way on the 2-lane road weren’t even felt as they passed by mere feet away. All with my seat ventilation on, the stereo literally blasting so loud I was laughing and marveling at the quality of the sound, and being as comfortable as I’ve ever been while lounging in the large front seat of this truck.
I didn’t know peacocks could fly but look in the tree, up it went!
Later in the week was a trip of a different sort – I needed to go up into Rist Canyon to attend a home inspection for a house my wife had placed under contract for a client. Heading up the canyon, eventually there was a turnoff onto a private road which turned out to be dirt. Ok, no problem, so I started heading further uphill. A couple of minutes later, rain started falling and the road turned muddy.
One push of the button and we were in 4WD high and any feeling of slippage was gone, all six tires were confidently gripping the dirt and slinging fine mud spray all over the truck (which I washed off later on). Once at the home site, the seller’s eyes got big and he insisted on a personal tour of the truck, which turned out to be a major ice-breaker.
But for much of my time if not mileage, it literally was just an errand-runner. The overwhelming memory is that I got more exercise. I went to the Post Office. And parked at the end of the lot. I went to the grocery store. And parked near the street across the lot. I also went to pick up some fast food. And parked instead of even attempting a drive-thru. I even went to church. And parked as far away as I’ve ever parked.
While pulling into a spot isn’t too difficult and it will even stay within the lines as in the picture above, there was zero confidence that there won’t be someone parked next to it when I returned. And that, my friends, would mean Game Over. Even with the cameras on the back, the front, the bed, and all the sides affording an “overhead” view, this truck needs space to maneuver.
The cameras were a huge help pulling into my flip’s tight driveway…
I did actually parallel park it in Golden, albeit two blocks away from where I wanted but I did parallel park. And did well at it, the cameras helped a lot. Parking in a shopping center is not its forte, nor of course is it its reason for being. The average owner of one of these likely owns at least one or more other vehicles to perform more mundane chores in and lives on a spread with a huge parking area. At the final sticker price of $87,810 that this one rang up at (base is $65,250) that owner can likely afford more than just this truck.
Driving on normal roads takes a bit of getting used to, like driving a large U-Haul this thing is obviously wide. Thank goodness for bike lanes… (I’m just kidding, calm down, I did not use the bike lanes). But I did harken back to my first driving instructor lo those many years ago that advised me (in a RWD Corolla) to line myself up in the lane with the mirrors and then pick a spot on the windshield or the wiper or the hood to use to line up visually with the road markings and keep it there.
That trick still works and I used it a lot at first. But after a while it also just becomes second nature but you end up not driving right next to someone else, you kind of stay either in front or behind them just in case either needs to move laterally quickly
Did I mention what this truck contains as part of the price? Well, I did go over it in the earlier piece linked here so won’t regurgitate it again but I have no doubt that RAM is correct when they tell me that the RAM HD line is #1 in HD in all areas to the west of and including Colorado and in second place overall in the US.
They also enjoy the highest resale value of all the HD competitors. That’s not surprising when you look at it. Yes, styling is very subjective, however of the players in this space, I find the RAM to be the most attractive. I absolutely love the rear fenders.
The way they bulge out and then tuck back in looks fantastic in the rear view. A good friend of mine whom I took for a spin said they look like a mega-sized version of his Porsche 944 rear fenders. And he is correct, they do! The front looks like the big rig it really is. But the inside is what makes it. The wood on the dash. The leather on everything.
I’m not particularly one for embroidery myself but my friend, my mother, my neighbors, the gentleman selling his house I mentioned earlier, they all found themselves looking at and verbalizing how much they liked it on the door panels, the center console lid and the seats. These people have nothing in common with each other and hail from all walks of life and really liked it.
Further, the touchscreen game in trucks has been upped with the 12″ display in this one. There are redundant controls (buttons/knobs) for many frequently used items but the screen itself is user customizable, i.e. you can drag and drop your favorite controls into a row so they are always right there (like configuring the app layout on a smart phone). And everything can be voice controlled as well.
There are plugs and outlets and chargers almost everywhere, both inside and outside of the storage compartments. The seats (all of them) and steering wheel can be heated, the front seats can be cooled (ventilated). There are multiple camera options for a trailer and ways to easily toggle between the views.
Tire pressure not just on the truck but also on the trailer (actually, can be programmed to recognize multiple trailers) can be monitored. The truck has a Jake-Brake so that you can sound just like a real trucker on a long downhill (or to actually use engine braking when towing a big load instead of me just acting like a 5-year-old).
I did try it though, it works and even has a gauge in the main cluster that shows how much power it is generating. The rear suspension has an auto-leveling air suspension feature that you can use to drop the rear on demand to perhaps slide backwards under a trailer, and then raise it back up to engage the ball using the camera.
Then you only have to get out to actually fasten it and the chains and plug it in. Big deal? It is when it’s 120 degrees out. Or worse, when it’s minus 20 and snowing. Who wants to keep getting out and back in and out again multiple times when trying to hook up to a multi-ton trailer?
The whole point here is to make life easier for people for whom trucks and what they can perform IS their life. These people are in the cab all day, every day sometimes. I’m the only fool driving this thing to Starbucks, but even I wouldn’t do that if it were mine unless I was using this truck to do something and it was on the way to somewhere I needed to be.
No, don’t get me wrong, and don’t read the foregoing as me saying this truck is anything less than great. But be aware that not everyone in a truck doesn’t need a truck. In fact, conversely, the ones driving the largest trucks that potentially annoy people the most are the ones that actually are able to and need to use all of the capability it offers. As marvelous as the features are on this truck, they are also generally available on other, less expensive (and less capable) versions.
This here is a working man’s (or woman’s, I hasten to add) version, if you see one with a trailer it’s likely as not to have a different state’s plates on it and it’s likely come from far away and going further away still. The luxury and features are there to make things more enjoyable, less fatiguing, and safer.
As I mentioned in the other piece, yes it’s a lot of money, but if that money is being used to make more money (and thus a living) for someone then it’s well spent. And really, if you see one of these looming in your rear-view, just get out of the way; to paraphrase Jerry Reed, the driver’s probably got a long way to go and a short time to get there…
As a commercial operator, I often wonder how these types of vehicles would tolerate commercial use. We tried them about fifteen years ago but we went back to standard HD 5 ton trucks, which have a lower operating cost compared to the pick-ups we tried.
I also wonder about the durability of a 6.7 litre motor making 1000 lb/ft of torque. There is a reason that large vehicles have large engines in the 16-17 litre range. It would be really interesting to see of a 6.7 Cummins could do 1,000,000 km without any repair.
Regardless of durability, FCA sells a lot of these things so they must be giving operators when they want.
Well the jury is still out on whether the newest trucks making 1000 lb/ft will do it but I can tell you the older versions, often with a tune cranking the output to a similar level will do 500k mi or more in commercial service. In the small load (3) car shipping world the Cummins powered Rams do rule the roost around here. There are a couple of dealer auction yards around here so seeing these, sans bed, is a daily occurrence. The bed is missing of course so there is more available capacity for payload.
I see a lot of these in some form of commercial use here, especially as car and equipment haulers. The sight of what looks like an ordinary pickup hauling 3 or 4 cars or a large piece of construction equipment, on a trailer that by itself weighs a lot, always impresses me.
They’ve more or less replaced the traditional Class 5-6 stakebed farm trucks on our small farms here in northern New England. No fancy trim unless bought well-used, though, it would just get ruined in the first week.
I understand that the 4500+ versions (medium duty/professional) of this pickup use a detuned/less highly tuned version of this engine specifically for reliability.
I’m still surprised that Ram didn’t use the new platform for this truck and instead updated the old one.
It’s my understanding that the new DT platform HDs will be coming around 2021-22. IMO, that can’t come soon enough. The center hump in the rear floor of these DS trucks makes for an uncomfortable ride even for short-legged folks if they’re forced to sit in the middle for longer than half an hour. The Mega Cabs at least have a sloped rear floor.
“…not everyone in society is a fan of pickup trucks or perhaps the people that drive them…. Curiously, none of this ever seems to happen with mid-size sedans.”
13 mpg is frightening, I agree. We just had the hottest June on record. Rarely do I see one of these with more than one person onboard or handling any kind of load. Having to park next to one of these behemoths is painful too, as you showed. Sure they’re great for hauling a full load and a work crew to a site, but how often are they really used for that?
I see lots of them working, sometimes very hard around here. As Jim noted for many the load is only one way. You go pick something up to take is somewhere so it needs to be empty for that upcoming load. Plus there may be a significant load in the bed that you just can’t see unless you are able to look into the bed.
If you’re in the construction, oil, horse, or livestock industry probably fairly often. All things considered, 13mpg is probably pretty good. (But yes, objectively to us without a need, frightening). And this helping to make the point that this is rarely a “leisure” vehicle purchase.
I could be a pedant and point out that your 500e has four seats and seatbelts too but frequently probably has just you aboard. 😀. (I guess I WAS that pedant.). Think of the three other commuters whose cars could be off the road! with a little planning!
This particular truck configuration is more of a tool than a toy. The luxury accoutrements are there to make the job more comfortable for the owner-operator.
In the same way that your car isn’t a suitable option for someone in the cattle industry in North Dakota, this wouldn’t be a good fit for you and your needs. But that doesn’t make either an invalid choice, it just depends on the situation. What’s amazing is both are made by the same company!
Not a lot of oil, horse or livestock industry in metro Portland but certainly construction and vehicle hauling, which I’ve seen such rigs working. But there are many other such heavy-duty pickups in traffic and parking lots around here that make me suspect they’re just showing off. Maybe some are used to pull an RV or large boat from time to time, but I wish they’d stay parked otherwise.
My 500e is really a two-seater, no one has ever been in the back seat, nor would I put anyone over 12 back there. The seatbacks stay folded down, which gives it a pretty large cargo capacity, ideal for almost all our errands. And Lily’s in the other seat pretty often, so there. 😉 Plus we have a 4.2 kW solar array on the roof to charge it with. That’s my way of showing off.
I’m really looking forward to what the Rivian and Tesla pickups do to this market. Rivian’s towing capacity is 11,000 pounds. A big electric truck with one person onboard is fine. It’s a more efficient user of carbon fuels than a diesel, and it’s potentially solar, wind, nuclear or hydro-powered as the electric supply gets cleaner.
Rivian isn’t going to to do anything to the market of this truck. Few people who have a need for a 1 ton diesel dually are going to buy a Rivian, and it doesn’t appeal to people who buy big trucks for show.
The Rivian, though a bit small, could possibly meet my needs. But not at $70K.
Eventually Rivian will offer a higher-load truck, and electrics will surely take some market share. There’s a reason diesel locomotives have electric drive to the wheels: it’s spelled T-O-R-Q-U-E.
Rivian could cut deeply into the market for high-zoot half-ton pickups, things like the F-150 Platinum Titanium Limited or whatever it’s called and the similar fully-trimmed 1500s from Chevy, GMC, and Ram. Leisure trucks. It’s too bad Rivian won’t have anything like Tesla’s Supercharger on-the-go refueling option, but it will have long-range batteries good for up to 400 miles. The 3500 HD market still belongs to diesels for the near future though.
This particular truck configuration is more of a tool than a toy. The luxury accouterments are there to make the job more comfortable for the owner-operator.
That’s the rub. They are tools. And I have no problem in allowing the owner-operator comfort while using it. But around my home, I see many being daily driven, bedecked in all sorts of bling, with nary a speck of dirt from being used as a work implement or toy hauler. I don’t doubt they may serve a purpose, but my impression is that many are being purchased as a tax break for the owner of a small business, as a luxury sedan or smaller truck does not qualify for the tax break. Bob the Builder or Roy the Rancher may get a lot of use out of these, but Bubba the iPhone repair store owner only uses it to tow a smaller boat that a 1500 could manage quite well. (Yes, that is exactly what I spotted recently – his business spelled out in a sticker on the rear window, while towing a boat to a nearby launch ramp.) Perhaps he has another car for his daily, but I have my doubts. Maybe iPhone repairs are more lucrative than I think and he can afford another vehicle for his daily. More likely, his significant other drives the other vehicle in their 2 car family. Many more of these seem to be turned into full fledged Bro-Dozers, rolling coal on secondary roads on their way to work. Maybe it’s geographical, as western North America seems to be their natural habitat. Those in the Southeast don’t seem to be of the same breed.
The right tool, used by a craftsman, makes sense. A specialized tool used by a tool does not.
Almost any half ton truck qualifies for the same tax break as well as most midsize and larger SUV/CUVs. And note it’s not a Tax CREDIT, it’s a tax deduction, meaning the vehicle still isn’t free but can reduce the taxable base and basically reduce the price of the vehicle by the owner’s tax rate.
Additionally, come trade in time, any remaining value is recaptured. So if a buyer gets a $50k tax deduction and trades it in for another $50k toy but the trade in value is $30k now that new vehicle is only subject to a $20k tax deduction.
But if Joe the Plumber trades it in for a used $10000 Honda Accord, he now has increased his taxable base by the $30000 tradein value that was once part of the $50k deduction.
It’s a tax credit in Canada, which makes the TCO about a third to half less, depending on your tax bracket.
The catch is there is a $50,000 limit or $700 a month in lease payments.
A Golf SportWagen gets zero attention from Canada Revenue Agency.
A vehicle like this would be classified a company asset and be on a depreciation schedule.
I would agree 13 mpg is pretty decent for what this is. Years ago I had a 3/4 ton Dodge with a 360 gas engine. On its longest trip it got 10.2 mpg empty and 9.8 mpg pulling my old Galaxie. 13 mpg would have been a dream.
Agree, although I pull 10,000 pounds of horses and trailer with a 2005 Dodge Ram 3500 turbo diesel dually (2WD, though), and routinely get between 13 and 14 mpg. I don’t think I’ve ever seen below 13 mpg, at least not that I recall, and have gotten as high as 17 to 18 mpg when not pulling a trailer.
The ‘92 Chevy Silverado it replaced – a 3500 dually with a 454 – seemed like it would consistently get 11 mpg, regardless of whether it was towing, on the highway, or in stop-and-go traffic.
We’ve come a long way… 13Mpg would have been a dream in my 1970 Cadillac Fleetwood! And that was just a sedan!
That’s the mpg I averaged with my ’73 Galaxie 🙂 Things haven’t changed much.
In fairness to the Galaxie, the Caddy, and indeed the subject 3500, in some ways we haven’t gotten so much better. I had a 2010 BMW 750iL xDrive (4.4 TT V8) for a time and it got about 13 mpg in the city and I don’t think I ever saw better than 21 mpg in a gentle 75 mph cruise. 🤷♂️🤦♂️
That car would pass anything BUT a gas station!
Anyway, super sweet truck. Well suited for the purpose.
The other day I saw this vehicle’s ancestor being towed up I-25. It was a little orange mini-pickup that would never have made me think of this monstrosity, but the decal clearly said “Dodge Ram.” It would have fit in the back of this Ram, with a minor overhang. Later that day, I was stuck behind a black, murdered-out giant pickup whose name had been rearranged to “O G.” On its trailer hitch was a stylized chrome design. On further examination, I saw that it spelled out “F#ck you” in the shape of a middle finger. Aimed at everyone who drove behind this dickhead.
Thus is the difference between the beginning of my driving days, 1970 or so, with the fuel crisis and its compromised but whimsical vehicles, and today, with our current anger crisis. I see plenty of this around Denver, conspicuous displays of anger, aggression and more commonly, blithe arrogance. I’ve come to despise “Menver,” but I suspect my real problem is deeper. I don’t much like this 21st Century.
That sounds like the Ram 50, a rebadged Mitsubishi. Even the shortest Ram 50 was over 15′ long, so would have more than just a “minor overhang” in this Ram’s 8′ bed (never mind that it’d also be too wide).
People have always been angry; it’s just that now it’s socially acceptable to express emotions publicly rather than bottle them up.
I find pickups to be intoxicating… once I have a brief taste of one, I keep wanting to come back for more. Perhaps that’s why I love trucks like this, even though I have no rational reason to own one.
I recently got to drive an older, heavy-duty pickup, as my brother-in-law just acquired a nearly mint-condition 1992 GMC 3500. Not a dually, but equipped with a 454 and a 5th wheel hitch. Driving it around, if only for a few miles , made me want to trade in my minivan for one right away.
This review was great to read — and the Ram looks very much at home at the Wyoming Welcome Sign. Definitely it’s natural habitat. Oh, and is just me, or is the Ram’s weather map predicting snow for Fort Collins in the summer?
It was yet another hail storm, somehow I avoided it but it was good to know about it in advance. We’ve had several damaging ones so far this season.
Looking at those stripes on the steering wheel would drive me nuts.
For dually trucks I’d say yes most people do work them hard and don’t just use them to run to the post office and starbucks, unless they are on the way to the feed store, lumber yard, job site or pasture.
Just changed the oil in my F250 long bed, crew cab 4×4 that I bought back in 2016. I’ve put just under 12k miles in the 2 5/6 years that I’ve owned it. The reason it only goes about 4k miles per year is that it is only used for hauling something (usually one way), or when it snows. Ok yes occasionally when it hasn’t moved for a long time I’ll use it on an errand where its capacity isn’t needed. But that is done mainly to make sure the battery won’t be dead when I do need to use it.
Otherwise it makes no sense to drive something that gets 12-14 mpg, is a pain to park, and has a stiff ride unladen. Mine is an ex-gov’t fleet XL model, mainly because I can’t justify spending more than that for something that sees so little use, but also because if it was a upper trim with the leather, nice stereo, remote entry, power windows and locks, I’d probably want to use it a lot more.
You have a very similar use case to me. I’ve put about 36K on my ‘15, but a lot of that was from making the 16 hour trip to my Dad’s in the last few years of his dementia. I, too, will sometimes take the truck to work just to keep it limbered up for when I do need it to do some hard work. I often wish for the existence of parking lot tug boats, as it’s a bear to park – and it’s only a sc/lb! It only came with the tailgate rear camera which is a “must have,” and I added a second camera on the front bumper to aid in nose-in parking or hitching up a hay rack to push I to the barn.
I bought a Dodge 2500 at a GSA on-line auction 10 years ago. I wanted a small truck to keep for light hauling at the lake house. I thought I was bidding on a newer Dodge Dakota, but evidently transposed the stock number in my winning bid.
Took about a month to arrange delivery from western Colorado. When it arrived, my 1st thought was “these idiots delivered the wrong truck.” A few phone calls later I found the real idiot – me.
Being a stubborn German, keeping the truck allowed me to deny the indisputable fact that I had overpaid for an older less desireable vehicle. Typical government truck. Vinyl bench seat, rubber floor mat, crank windows and manual tranny. The only options appear to be the 8 liter V10 and AC.
68k miles when I got it, 10 years on, 102k miles. Not a practical daily driver, but not used as such either. When the need does arise, it will haul or pull anything up our Ozark hills on or off road. Used as God intended, the utility of such a basic truck has grown on me over the years.
Filling the 36 gallon tank quickly empties your wallet, but at least I’m not paying for diesel. The heavy duty rear springs deliver a lumberwagon ride on even the smoothest roads, but the truck never seems overloaded. I may have overpaid on the purchase, but the sting has faded along with the paint job. How wrong can you be paying $4k to gain 10 years use of a heavy duty truck?
I never thought I’d use “trouble free” and “Dodge” in the same sentence, but there – I said it. May be expected for a Toyota, but for a Dodge, it is high praise indeed. If vehicles can be said to have personality, I think the Dodge recognizes it is always just one big repair bill away from ending its life with me.
I see lots of people driving hu-uger and hu–uuger pickups, that used to drive regular size pickups of the nineties. And still more who used to drive cars but who migrated to pickups, not because they needed one, as you alluded to so eloquently. In the past year I could have used a pickup maybe three or four times, so I just rented one at the home fixer upper store. There is no denying the trend of increased sales of pickups.
The more of these that are on the roads, driving at 12-14 mpg, may hasten the rest of vehicle fleets to migrate to electricity or hybrid.
Unless I’m mistaken, trucks over 8500 lbs. GVWR (2500s and up) don’t contribute towards a manufacturer’s fleet MPG average.
Yup and as such they are not required to display MPG on the sticker, like the under 8500 trucks.
Agreed, up to the point someone wakes up and decides they want those numbers included as well. I was thinking in a macro sense.
When and why would that be? What would it accomplish?
Big Jim!
As an aside, if I order a truck here powered by a 6.7 liter Cummins and with a full tonneau cover, I would end up with this in my driveway.
These are kind of in the same category for me as a supercar – in that they are completely irrelevant to my life. Although I do see them more frequently than I see supercars.
It is cool, though, to get a “man in the driver’s seat” perspective. Wow, trucks continue to amaze me with the features they bring to the table today.
And I laughed at the “frightening” figure of 13 mpg. In 1979 I was driving a 1963 Cadillac Fleetwood that was undoubtedly not running as well as it should have been. If I had ever, even once, hit 13 mpg I would have thrown a party! I was getting 7-9 (on premium) in that 5200 pound car. I am constantly amazed at how far we have come on fuel mileage.
For comparison, Jim, I average about 13-14 with my 2500 5.7l gas engine. The extra spend for the Diesel engine never would have penciled out for my use case from a fuel “savings” standpoint. My former ‘99.5 Powerstroke F-250 also got about 13 MPG. My ‘69 F-100 240/auto got about 9, loaded or not. Progress!
Good points, Ed. I do not think it is ever worth it using a diesel engine in a truck less than five tons. That is based my my own personal experience with fleet vehicles. The light duty diesels we had in our fleet where down way more than the gas engines. Modern emissions make said light duty engines very maintenance intensive.
Our smaller stuff such as cubes and low decks are running CNG now. It is half the cost of gasoline where we are and very good for maintenance.
A heavy duty is diesel a whole different animal as they are designed to last pretty much forever.
Although I don’t want to sound too critical, when I saw the price of the featured truck, my first thought was, “I can get two clean, low-km used Hino 308’s for that kind of money and have plenty of cash left over to bring them up to spec.”
But to each their own.
Several truck makers also offer heavy trucks and tractors (I mean, REALLY heavy) running on CNG/LNG.
Just an example, a 460 hp long-distance Iveco Stralis:
https://www.iveco.com/uk/products/pages/gas-powered-for-long-haulage-new-stralis.aspx
I am seeing more and more HD trucks on CNG here as well. The ones I have seen tend to be for day work but I’d wager highway trucks will soon use it. CNG takes away a lot of the problems associated with diesels.
I totally get it on the price seeming high but nobody is running oil equipment from Texas to North Dakota and the other way around at 20mph over the 75-80mph limit in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night in a Hino. This happens constantly (every night) and is just one example. Nobody’s piggybacking 3-5 cars from Seattle to KC on a Hino either. Or at least nobody that does it for a living and drives their own vehicle is buying the Hino for the job. The horsey set isn’t big on Hinos either from what I can tell. A trailer with a steel beam or a load of roofing trusses within fifty miles of home base? Sure, that I can see.
Len, you need to review one of those Hinos for us!
Actually, they are used for exotic car transport all the time. They are completely inside, which is the attraction. Where we are anyway, I have seen Hino truck with wreckers, flat decks, utilities and any other body one wants.
As for a reviews: we have never once replaced an engine in any unit. The turbos go about 2,500,000 km before packing it up. The injectors come out every 500,00 km for service. Breakdowns are very rare, only one in the last year of 18 units.
“Modern emissions make light duty engines very maintenance intensive.”
That’s just not true as of late. Fuel filter and oil changes have increased significantly since the “golden era” of diesels, and adding DEF is a once an oil change event and costs nearly nothing, in the grand scheme of things. Fuel filters have gotten significantly more expensive, but the intervals have been stretched out much further than in the past as well. As far as fuel consumption is concerned, our 2019 F250 gets considerably better mileage than either of my previous diesels. And from what I have seen from friends rigs, I expect it to log about 250-300k miles of hard service before a major repair.
Right now there is not a gas engines truck that can pull as much as this one, not even close. Even down in the range of the max the gassers can do if it is used for heavy loads regularly the diesel’s fuel economy under heavy load is worth it.
I was driving the Grand Lady around last summer and she’s just an awesome vehicle. It snaked up the Malahat much better than a car of this age and weight should. I had three friends and three dogs and we all had a blast.
Being me, I had it on the rug as often as possible and didn’t ever spare any ponies.
The result was 25L/100 km of Chevron 94. That’s 9.4 mpg. The truck featured in the article is 50% better.
Anyway, next month I get to play with Hot Rod Lincoln which can actually do 10 mpg. I can’t floor it hardly ever because doing so sends it into warp speed.
Thus, high performance saves fuel.
Last week I was driving a rental Skoda Octavia. It was a decent sized car, comfortable and capable, and I spent most of my time with the cruise control set to 80mph on the motorway. It drove well everywhere, with perfectly adequate power whenever needed. Typically I was seeing about 45 mpg (US), dipping to 40mpg at worst. Best was over 60mpg.
When I checked, I found it had a 1.0 litre 3 cylinder engine from Volkswagen. Very impressive, and I was certainly amazed by how far we’ve come!
Nice review, Jim! Heavy duty trucks are remarkable machines, the bare bones 2015 XL F250 with 6.2 V8 I get to use periodically is growing on me despite all the onroad compromises, shameful tactile cheapness, and rattly doors. Something about a truck, I guess. Industrial grade goods for the masses. This Dodge looks like a wonderful upgrade.
“Sometimes people take issue with the size of the vehicles, or perhaps the load that is or is not being carried. Sometimes the need for the vehicle itself is questioned. Curiously, none of this ever seems to happen with mid-size sedans.”
Well, that’s probably because midsize sedans don’t blot out the sun, use their mass and elevation to kill absolutely everyone in the opposing vehicle, belch soot into the faces of the populace on every throttle application, or attract the demographic who revels in projecting aggression and intimidating other motorists ;). Setting tongue in cheek hyperbole aside (I really am kind-of joking), the relative wastefulness and unused potential of a single occupant sedan is so much smaller than a full size pickup that this logic doesn’t really work for me. You’re better off simply explaining that you have to drive with an empty bed to pick up a load, and that if surburban cowboys want to drive these to the office and nowhere else, that really isn’t your problem as a truck owner who uses his to its potential. This coming from an 18mpg SUV owner who has no room to criticize and therefore doesn’t.
Also, like the sticker-festooned hypermiling Prius, a vehicle type is caricatured by the most visual and obnoxious minority of owners. If Brodozers didn’t exist, if some of these trucks weren’t tailgating and weaving while flying 90mph down urban freeways in defiance of the risks of their mass and momentum, I suspect criticism of pickups would be far less.
Jim, you’ve articulated the underlying uniqueness of pickups. They bring people together socially, as you repeatedly observed, as there is a basic friendliness to them. Has any sedan, SUV, or CUV done that? Maybe, but I’m not thinking of any.
As you observed so well, some people simply have no need for a one-ton or any size of pickup. That’s great. But a lot of people do and these fill the need quite well. Seeing one so well equipped is the unusual element about this rig.
The real talent of this pickup, regardless of trim, is it being a tugboat. Some comments have referred to pack mule-esque trucks but they serve different purposes and comparisons of the two are invariably flawed. This Ram is a tugboat, able to pull nearly any load thrown at it. It can also traverse any type of terrain (that would have been better if this were a GM) while still pulling that load.
More power to FCA for making this. Of course there are critics but what in life isn’t criticized?
The Prius is a sedan that brings people together socially, at least they did when hybrids were novel. There are plenty of groups around the Tesla sedans too.
Revving the snot out of a large diesel will always produce poor fuel mileage shifting up at the top of the greem(max torque) is the way they should be driven to produce best results, that aside this could be really usefull as a hauling device in single cab with a decent alloy drop side flat deck, do they come in single cab? Ive yet to see one but there are a couple of flat decks around the wellside they come with is ridiculously narrow and the chassis can take a proper 8ft2in wide deck,
I would think, and have observed myself, that revving the snot out of these things leads to pretty big repair bills after the warranty is up. At least that is what happened to me.
That said, you can order one of these trucks without the pick-up box and put any flat deck you want on it. I have seen them with utility bodies, as wreckers and towing livestock, mostly.
I’m kind of torn on the whole pickup thing. I love vintage trucks. As a fashion statement, you can’t go wrong with a classic Chevy or Ford pickup, particularly my favorites are the “high boy” 4wd, especially a circa 1977 or so Ford F150 long bed. But modern trucks to me are nothing more than utilitarian vehicles that have unnecessarily high price tags to be even considered simply such. The featured Ram in this article would be considered a commercial grade truck in an other country–except this one, the USA.
As such, I find myself, for the first time in my life, considering the purchase of a pickup as a second vehicle. Why? Two reasons–one, my beloved 2002 Ford Crown Victoria. She is a low mileage cream puff, and even though at her age, she will always be a low mile car, even when I hit the 100K mark, I’d like to keep her under the century mark if I could. Twice now, I’ve had 2 people want to buy it; and I don’t mean, hey nice car, I’d like to buy that–I’m talking wild-eyed, drooling, manic, irrational kind of interest, like they can’t believe such a nice Crown exists. This tells me I possess quite a potential gold mine. But I will always want to keep it.
Second, there are times, not often, when I really need a truck and I either have to rent one or borrow a friend’s, and I’m quite tired of doing that. Since my world-view of modern trucks is something akin to, and about as sexy as, a beast of burden, a truck makes perfect sense as a second vehicle for me. It will be ready to haul something on a moment’s notice, and since it will be the daily grunt vehicle, and having not as much love for said vehicle, I’ll be less inclined to fuss and fawn over it the way I do my Crown Victoria. In fact, a none-too-natty, slightly sketchy-looking pickup truck is a great deterrent to keep bad drivers and idiots away from you. Those kind of vehicles tend to be given a wide berth in traffic. All the better if it has knobby tires and a raucous exhaust note.
Even though I’m a Ford man at heart, my truck of choice would have to be a Chevy Silverado. My brother swears by them, you can get Panther-like high miles out of one, and of the Big 3 trucks, the Chevy, in my view, looks the most part like a real pickup should. The Ford and the Dodge (Ram) look like they are trying way too hard to come across as a 1/3 off big rig. Ram’s repair record is deplorable and the Ford’s problematic Triton engines with the cam phasers are a massive headache best avoided.
This pic is a pretty close image of what I see in my mind’s eye when I picture my future truck. Look closely–would you want to mess with this thing in traffic?
The best gasoline engines out there for commercial use is the GM LS series. We are using Isuzu W4500 with 6.0L V-8 on CNG. We also have GM chassis for several cubes, with the LS 5.3 and CNG. The motors are simply awesome. They never break. They are built tough and maintenance is almost nothing on CNG.
I mostly see the 5.3L in the later trucks. Was the 6.0L relegated for use only on the 2500 series and up, or could you specify it as an option on a 1500? My brother would know this but he spends 75 hours a week on the road driving big rigs for the oil field industry and has very little free time for anything, let alone a phone call.
This is our stone reliable ’00 K2500. It is mostly parked when not needed for real work. They didnt even have an “HD” marketing designation, just the C6P option code for the payload package. 5.7L “Vortec” , 4L80E Hydramatic and 3.73 gears deliver up to 19mpg on level ground if I take it easy, but 11mpg city no matter what. 1990’s tech has its limits, but it can carry almost 70% of its unladen weight in the bed.
That’s a good looking rig. I had forgotten that the 1998-style body carried over for a few more years in the 2500 and 3500 series Chevy, and with the older body, the virtually-unbreakable 5.7L (350 CID) V-8. Not sure if my usage of a truck would justify a 2500 series, but it’s an avenue worth considering. Thanks for sharing.
Hey, a light-duty 2500! 6-lug wheels and all. A lot harder to spot than Ford’s light-duty F-250 of the time.
Interesting lights on these—at least on the de luxe models like this what you tried out. The good projector LED headlamps have some real money in them, and were sourced from a top-flight supplier. And the rear lamps provide red tail, red brake, and amber turn signal functions from the same lit area. FCA are doing this on other models, too, like the Cherokee, largely in response to a proposal a few years ago to award NCAP points for amber rather than red rear turn signals because amber ones do a better job of keeping vehicles out of crashes. But all the research showing the benefit was done with amber turn signals physically separate from the red brake lights; it’s likely the crash-avoidance benefit is less with this same-lit-area setup.
(that proposal was issued under the previous US administration, and is probably now dead—or at best it’s stalled)
Ooof, I struggle with this vehicle a lot. I know that several people explained that yes, they have their uses and people need this truck to haul some enormous trailer or 5 cars or livestock or something, but at some point the mine’s-bigger-than-yours thing has gotten out of hand perhaps. I am thinking, people have always hauled cars in the past, does someone buy this to make a regular job out of transporting a large number of cars? I also think if your RV is THAT big, wouldn’t you be better off with a bus sort of thing? I don’t know.
Pickup trucks used to be utilitarian, no frills, reasonably sized vehicles which had room for three people and a bed in the back to haul whatever you didn’t mind getting lost or stolen. Now after massive steroid doses, they’ve turned into enormous luxury things which cost more than my house, can tow my house, are bigger than my house, and if they run into my house will flatten my house. I get a little nervous and intimidated by something this big barrelling down on me on the freeway or coming at me on a secondary street, and I suppose that’s the point.
But I thought about this vehicle some more. For one thing, profits from this sort of vehicle are about the only thing keeping domestic manufacturers in business, and yes, I do not want to see them disappear or be bailed out again. For another thing, in most countries, this sort of thing wouldn’t possibly exist. Europeans are stuck with tiny three and four cylinder cars with stop start and a range of unpleasant fuel saving technologies, and cannot figure out which to ban next, diesel or gasoline or what. Japanese vehicles are tough, but certainly not vast and impressive the way this vehicle is. Whatever it is, it’s extremely impressive that a $90,000 TRUCK is available, and purchased for civilian use! Just anyone can walk up to a Dodge (Ram is not really a brand until Chrysler sells it) with $90,000 and buy the thing, and do whatever they want to, and people do! That’s some sort of accomplishment, this Saturn V, this Panzer Tank, this B1Bomber, this Ne Plus Ultra of vehicles, is available and commonly purchased by the American public.
God Bless America.
Your mention of the Saturn V reminded me that the Mercury-Redstone booster that put America’s first man into space in 1961 was built by none other than the Chrysler Corporation.
Oh, that’s right, isn’t it?! Chrysler did a lot of the space program work and I think still has/until fairly recently had an electronics unit in Huntsville, Alabama. There was a lot of pentastar in the missions to the stars.
“Pickup trucks used to be utilitarian, no frills, reasonably sized vehicles which had room for three people and a bed in the back to haul whatever you didn’t mind getting lost or stolen.”
…You can still get those. They didn’t go anywhere. Nobody took them away.
Compare a 1990 GM/Ford/Chrysler pickup, the last generations before Chrysler upped the ante with the 1994 Ram, to its current descendant, and see what the differences in size are.
What, a slightly longer cab? You’re complaining about having too much in-cab storage? Utilitarian no-frills pickups with steel wheels, crank windows, and vinyl bench seats and floor are still available to buy.
Lots of interesting comments here. While I do think that most of the 3/4 and almost all of the 1 ton dually trucks I see are work trucks, I think it’s also the case that some of that work could be done by a smaller truck. And then, just this afternoon, in true CC Effect fashion, I saw a spotlessly clean full sized dually, with unblemished mud tires, parallel parked on a crowded street near the beach. It certainly looked like it had never worked a mile in its life. Finally, I’ll share my one experience driving such a vehicle, already almost 15 years ago. I borrowed what was then a very late model GMC 1 ton dually, 4×4 crew cab, with the Duramax diesel and Allison automatic, to haul some building supplies, bulky but not too heavy, on about a 350 mile round trip from sea level to 7000’ and back. A drive I had done for years, in our old Corolla and Ranger, my FZJ80 Land Cruiser, and my Turbo Forester XT. Incredible power, brilliant shifting, painfully harsh ride on expansion strips and pavement cracks but quite comfortable on smooth pavement, and 17+ mpg (US) for the round trip. The Land Cruiser might get 15 mpg and Forester would barely average 20 on the same loop. I was impressed, and I’m sure the tech has only gotten better. But you do have to watch those duallies in the mirror!
You make a fine and balanced case for these things. It is not an unabashed fan letter, and rightly points out the comforts and uses that are very relevant to a commercial operator.
They are, ofcourse, an irrelevance to the 7.3 billion people not in North America. In Aus, to fill the 35 gallon tank would cost $250 – to go not too much over 400 miles. Empty.
They seem like a mechanical version of the Darwinian theory. A mutation occurs that confers an advantage, so it breeds more, and dominates. And this mutation is likely not finished. The two-story ones with bathroom are next, the third-level jacuzzi ones not far behind that. Maybe.
They are not in any sense necessary. Their non-existence everywhere else proves that. They are purely a local curiosity that has arisen from cheap fuel. If fuel prices leapt tomorrow, it is guaranteed that the North American rural, contractor and suburban show-off alike would quickly transfer to the mixed (and less profligate) means by which a Europe or an Australia manages to move stuff about. I should add that that moving about occurs in mud and snow and at elevation and at speed and (particularly here) big distance.
Ofcourse, insofar as they are tied to American ideas of liberty and individualism, perhaps even identity, that is an entire other matter for a reasoned philosophical discussion, pro and con, over a glass of red. Or even two.
Talking of consumption, I don’t think for one minute 13 mpg empty, mostly freeway, is good at all. Jason Shafer points out his old Dodge 360 getting 10mpg. For all the vast array of tech and time, to move on just 3 mpg doesn’t impress .It is an utterly excessive usage arising simply from the fact of having to haul its own enormously weighty ass around. Being diesel, I know it won’t crash much from that when laden – which is the point – but the starting amount should be a whole lot better.
You’re pointedly ignoring all the massive strides made in capacity and comfort over that 10 MPG Dodge 360. A more appropriate replacement for that 360-equipped 3/4 ton Dodge would be a modern 1/2 ton Ram, which can get low 20s highway MPG with the 5.7 or 30 MPG with the diesel.
Not pointedly, inadvertently, Dr Z.
But this thing simply weighs far too much, making it a lazy engineering effort. On this very site, we’ve learned that a loaded semi-trailer in Europe can average 9+ mpg. For a personal transportation device to get just 25-odd% better – empty – is utterly excessive.
The payload is actually quite small for the cost and size of the unit. For less, a real truck could be had that is much more capable. The change could buy you a nice car to scoot around in.
Believe it or not, some people will pay more for a vehicle that has less capacity but greater creature comforts. And where’s the harm in that?
There is no other truck in the world that can do what this one can as efficiently.
It is designed to pull very large trailers at high speeds, it is not designed for maximum payload. If that is what you want then they will happily sell you a 4500 or 5500. But this is about pulling a large trailer at the 75-85mph all day every day. So yeah being optimized for that it doesn’t get that good of unloaded MPG.
Plus it is not all about the MPG, If your oil rig is down and needs a part you might have thousands of dollars slipping through your fingers every hour until it is fixed. If that part is 300 miles away you’ll want the truck that can get it there in 3.5 hrs, not the one that will take 4.6 hours because you are doing 65 instead of 85.
If you are the independent guy pulling those 3 car trailers getting paid by the mile the quicker the miles tick off the more money you can make, or at least get home sooner.
This particular one would be for the guy who is writing the check and driving it. So it has all the niceties someone might want in their office that they speed 8-12 hrs a day in.
What other vehicle can do the same things as this, though, in the same level of comfort?
You’re describing playthings. Real trucks haul large payloads. The parlour truck here only exists in the USA for a reason. They are rare in Canada because for the payload, the fuel cost is too high. Everywhere else in the world, an air suspended seat is plenty comfortable.
You are making up things again, Your beloved Hinos will be making 2 or 3 trips to move as much weight as this truck can do in one.
So which one is the more efficient? That extra little bit of MPG comes at a high cost.
Hinos come in a multitude of sizes up to 450hp tractor units pulling trailers grossing 50 tonnes, very comfortable to drive, Johannes shows us lots of European trucks but there are comparable Japanese trucks in all sizes and configurations
@ Bryce, Yes Hino makes larger trucks, but what Len keeps talking about being more capable than a truck like this are the Hino Cabovers sold in North America. Those stop at Class 5 or a wimpy 19.5K gross weight. Plus this truck is built for speed.
Want to get that Hino Cabover somewhere quickly, strap it on a trailer hooked to this and it will get there quicker than the Hino could on its own and the driver will be much more comfortable along the way.
So because it has nice things, it’s not a “real truck”?
I averaged 13 of which about 75% was freeway/highway, but all of it at elevations over 5000feet. Not all of that freeway driving was steady speed either, there was traffic in some cases as well as passing events on the highway with grades. The other 25% was in congested city/town traffic with frequent stops and starts. It also included me “seeing what she’ll do”, i.e. full throttle from a stop and on the go. It also included some speeds on clear roads without traffic that were perhaps a bit over the posted limits. Posted limits around here are 75-80mph. Speeds for loaded semi’s in Europe are nowhere near that. If I had kept the speeds to 55 or 60mph and was at sea level and used some clever route calculation tools as most major logistics firms can and do use then I would suspect the average mpg to be higher.
It’s also 4WD and as such lifted. Johannes’ recent postings show extremely low ground clearances and a multitude of ground effects to reduce fuel usage on Euro semi’s. If this thing was a couple of inches off the ground and optimized for that then it would do better as well. That loaded semi would not be able to go up the muddy mountain road I did for example. That all factors into the average mpg as well.
Note also that the engine is a special High Output version of the 6.7l Cummins, specifically optimized for that output perhaps at the expense of some other parameters.
The primary function of the RAM is to tow large loads, however it also needs to be able to function as a passenger vehicle and traverse terrain that is not paved or in some cases, not even improved at all. It can do and did all those things. Mpg was not the primary consideration in its engineering although with different goals it could likely do much better but with other compromises. While it CAN function as a “personal transportation device” and I tried to use it as such, I think I made it clear that while it can perform that way, that is not the best reason to have one, nor is it really marketed as such to all and sundry. The RAM 1500 in this case would be a better choice, perhaps with the 30mpg or whatever EcoDiesel for that if one must have a truck.
It’s kind of like saying it’s ridiculous to have a RAV4 AWD when a Prius gets 50mpg all day long.
I said at the outset that your review was fair. I meant just that, and thought my initial words implied so.
Beyond that, I’ll reduce my usual windy garbage. This behemoth is a product for a place, and set of usage and economic circumstances. There, within those parameters, it works, and well.
Outside of them, it is irrelevant, and vaguely ridiculous. And for many reasons well beyond what we’d discuss at CC, it is also thus vaguely insulting. Which complications I also alluded to, and alluded to the avoidance of discussing such, which I maintain.
The relevance of the mileage it gets under the welly of an enthusiast like yourself – and who the hell of us wouldn’t – and that of loaded Dutch semi-trailer 8 times its weight is something proper to raise. It points to engineering inadequacy. And it is not that the Dutch driver is going too slow: it is without a doubt that the lazily/cheaply engineered RAM is too heavy.
Even if accepting most are bought as a tow sled, it isn’t trying near hard enough to be the Prius instead of the RAV, and could.
Alright, I suppose the “relevance based on geographic location” is accurate, these aren’t big movers in Berlin or Rome either, for good reason.
For what it is, and where it is, it does fine, it sells and that’s the manufacturer’s job. They likely COULD use different, more expensive materials and lighten it but then it would likely be even more expensive, it’s not as if the manufacturer would or should take that cost hit. The manufacturer also doesn’t dictate fuel prices, if the buyers are fine with that and they can sell them, then engineering has done their job.
What I took issue with is that it seemed you were saying that 13mpg is the best anyone could ever hope to see, or at least that’s how I read it. I attempted to explain how it is that I got 13mpg in a truck that is not my own and in which the first tank of gas was included courtesy of RAM and the part I refilled was out of my own wallet. I am curious though what you believe a satisfactory mpg number would/should be assuming it was re-engineered without losing any capability?
The first thing that would happen if a light weight material was used to lessen the weight is that the competition would pounce and pronounce it somehow less capable due to that – you likely weren’t exposed to it but that’s exactly what happened when the F150 went aluminum a few years back. Now GM is using more Al themselves and all of a sudden I’m not seeing the anti ads anymore. The market mostly saw through that advertising gambit and lapped up the new F150 anyway but memories are short and marketing, well, it’s not always exactly accurate.
But thank you, I do try to be fair, and I appreciate the discussion. You and I usually are on more or less the same page (in my opinion anyway).
Cheers, Jim. And you make a point I overlooked. Without govt or community or industry-collective forcing that made all makers do similar, FCA would actually be failing their shareholders by taking profitability (or if increased costs, saleability) from their biggest profit centre.
The giant elephant here, ofcourse – no, no, over THERE, see? – is the global warming thing, in which what is done in one place IS relevant to another. Colours to the mast, I’m a believer (hell, it was the oil co’s scientists themselves who first came up with good grounds for the theory in the ’50’s!) and mention it here only because it explains, in part, why folk from without the US have views about the wider effects of the simple engineering mentioned above. I also hasten to add that if fuel fell to US pricing here, Aussies would buy RAMS in droves. Our biggest sellers are already the Hilux and Ranger-sized double-cab utes, in 4wd and diesel, 80% of which never use their weight and size as intended. We’re also worse than the US per capita for Co2 output, so I write this with zero sense of moral advantage!
My view on the MPG? I would have thought unladen, with a gentler boot than yours but not dawdling, with maybe 1500lbs gone from re-engineering and a modicum of aero consideration (in some imaginary world, ofcourse), about 20 mpg. Even for a lifted tugboat.
The reality is that this truck is designed for a very specific purpose, and that is towing up to 35k at high speed. So yeah it isn’t going to get great mileage even w/o a load. Other versions of the HD Ram diesels can get much better MPG. This just isn’t one of them and the vast majority of trucks in this specific configuration are used at are near their design limits at least some of the time.
That Euro truck driver that got 9 MPG was an anomaly and specifically notes that he drives to maximize MPG at all times. We also don’t know the specifics of the types of loads and roads he runs.
Just to put this truck’s capability into perspective, That 35K towing rating means you can probably haul 20-25k of payload.
Now lets compare that to MD straight trucks like our Canadian friend’s Hinos.
Class 4 is up to 16,000 lbs
Class 5 is up to 19,500 lbs (the heaviest Hino Cabover)
Class 6 is up to 26,000 lbs
Class 7 is up to 33,000 lbs
Those numbers are for truck and payload. So how many trips is it going to take in that Hino Cab Over? How many more hours and gallons of fuel will be wasted with those supposedly more efficient trucks?
@ Scoutdude. It wasn’t an anomaly, the excellent fuel milage of the truck was the main reason the hauling company ordered a few more of them with exactly the same specs.
In the comments you can read in what kind of traffic it’s used and the freights these are hauling.
@ Johannes Dutch, Maybe anomaly isn’t the right word, unusual is probably better. Fact is the article was about the techniques this particular driver used to obtain extraordinary mpg. Sure the truck is part of the equation, but as they say your mileage will vary, and the hypermiller on his game can eek out every mpg possible from a given configuration.
A spike in fuel prices and the American makers will be right back in 1973, 1979, 1992 and 2008 again. These fuel spikes did a lot to destroy the US car business and they have never recovered.
Their market is now almost elusively products they couldn’t possibly sell anywhere else. Meanwhile, companies like VW and Toyota grown larger and larger, with a bigger and bigger market share. It is all about short term product planning on cheap to design platforms.
But that can never happen again, right?
Personally I can’t wait for fuel to hit $5/gal, which is where it should be and would be considered cheap just about anywhere else in the world except Saudi Arabia and Venezuela, and get these bloated wang-extenders off the road except for those who really need them and can legitimately write off their business expenses. I see plenty of them driving around in the suburbs and city in immaculate condition by their pathetic macho-man wannabes, or just as bad, mommies taking the kids out for ice cream. Only in this addle-brained country is one of these monstrosities considered a status symbol… sheeesh!
You see Ram 3500 Duallies in the suburbs and in the city driven by moms taking kids to the ice cream parlor? Where do they park? Then again, if they can spend the ask for this rig, I don’t think they will care that gas is $5/gallon, it probably needs to be $10 at which time even a Prius driver will rethink getting that ice cream cone. A Range Rover or a Mercedes GL or an Escalade doesn’t get significantly better gas mileage either and gas is already over $4 a gallon in various West Coast locations so your wish is close to coming true.
I know of a F-650 driven around town to pick up coffee at Starbucks and drop a daughter off at the dance class. The thing is so tall my 10 year can walk under it and not hit his head. Sooner, or later, a day of reckoning will come voluntarily or more likely involuntarily.
Ford gave us a clue today to how they’re going to market their electric F150. They hitched a prototype to a train loaded with 42 F150s and it towed the million-pound load a short distance at a low speed:
https://youtu.be/bXFHgoon7lg
No F150, electric or otherwise, will be the match of a Ram 3500 in the real world, but this stunt does indicate they’re going to sell electric trucks on their inherent all-speed torque and resulting pulling power.
Yeah Ford is going to make sure the EV-150 can earn its keep.
Canucknucklehead raises a good point, which I forgot. What happens when the sweet music of cheap oil stops/tastes change? The current flavour is SUV/CUV’s, I remember the various automotive fads like the two seater doorstop shaped car of the early and mid eighties and the pocket sportily styled car built off of an economy platform. The CUV/SUV fad is bound to run its course as is cheap oil. . . but today’s American automotive leaders are so focused on the next quarter the fact that they will have no market share in smaller, cheaper, more fuel efficient segments doesn’t seem to be a problem. I’m pretty sure Toyota/Hyundai/Kia/Honda aren’t making a lot of money on their smaller cars but keeping those cars around makes sure that customers have an entry into the brand.
Apparently we will all be driving Hinos like everyone in Canada.
For now it seems as though FCA is intent on keeping the 500 around.
Ford did just introduce a new Focus for the rest of the world. If the tide shifts they will be able to bring it back to the US if there is a market. (Though maybe not with a Focus badge thanks to the whole power shudder mess).
GM still has small cars overseas and again could bring them over if they felt the need.
“The CUV/SUV fad is bound to run its course”
And be replaced with…what, exactly?
Once Amazon has taken over all delivery duties there will be no more need to carry freight around in our personal automobiles. Then we can all relax and enjoy the excitement of high-performance long-range electric sports cars like this one.
Just kidding…or not.
I live in Canada and I don’t drive a Hino. It was never a consideration and regardless of what their capabilities might be, I don’t know anybody else who has considered one either. I drive a one ton dodge diesel. But not a dually, that’s just too much truck for me. I use mine for hauling my slide in camper, and to tow my boat. Frequently I do both at the same time. I don’t use it as a daily driver, I have other vehicles for that use. But I do still take it to the store and on random errands sometimes so that it doesn’t sit too long at a time. I also keep it clean. Just because a truck is clean and shiny doesn’t mean it doesn’t get used. Mine has been muddy lots of times, I just clean it off right away after whatever trip that got it dirty. To me, if you’re going to make this kind of investment in a vehicle, you may as well keep it in good shape.
I do wonder about the towing capacity once you reach certain weights full air brakes are required for safety are these Rams capable of being specced with air brakes? Jakes are all very nice but they wont stop 25+tonnes in an energency
Nope, not until Class 6 on most US trucks. They will be electric brakes on the types of trailers this truck is designed for.
Maybe a review of a half ton truck from Ram, GM or Ford would give a better indication of where the modern truck market is like. These are available in many different cab, bed and drivetrain combinations. As to size, I think that a good rule is that your vehicle should be able to handle 90% of your hauling and transportation needs. It will be underutilized at times. Just like most SUVs, quad cab trucks, mini vans, and even sedans. Any vehicle that can’t meet your needs will be a disappointment. Sometimes a Miata or even a motorcycle will fill the bill, other times it won’t.