05 dodge 5.9 cummins reliability?

mayo30 wrote:

Wills250psd wrote:
Hello, my son is looking at a o5 2500 crew cab long bed 4x4. I know about tranny probs but this one is a straight drive. I also know the frontend issues in some of them. I would like to know about the ctd in this model year? any known probs, how many miles to expect with good past and future maintenance, any info appriciated.

You should know if you researched it that the 47RE transmission was the one people refer to as weak was not used in 2005 or for awhile before that.The 5.9l I had was a SRW 3500 auto and trouble free for over 200,000 miles or 320000 klms.I have a friend who has a 2005 5.9l ram auto that was an oil field truck with tuner,air box you name it, over 400000 klms needed front end work from rough terrain useage still going strong.No drive train problems.

Sorry I should have made it clear that in 2005 it has a 48RE not the 47RE that had the bad reputation.

Wills250psd wrote:
Hello, my son is looking at a o5 2500 crew cab long bed 4x4. I know about tranny probs but this one is a straight drive. I also know the frontend issues in some of them. I would like to know about the ctd in this model year? any known probs, how many miles to expect with good past and future maintenance, any info appriciated.

You should know if you researched it that the 47RE transmission was the one people refer to as weak was not used in 2005 or for awhile before that.The 5.9l I had was a SRW 3500 auto and trouble free for over 200,000 miles or 320000 klms.I have a friend who has a 2005 5.9l ram auto that was an oil field truck with tuner,air box you name it, over 400000 klms needed front end work from rough terrain useage still going strong.No drive train problems.

RamTX wrote:

Gemstone wrote:
Over 200K on the odometer, no major issues with my '05...Intercooler was replaced under warranty (bad design), fuel tube was replaced to #4 injector (bad design)...that is the extent of failures on my motor. No "regularly scheduled" maintenance, other than fluids, usually done by me. Still have the original injectors and batteries. It has proven to be an excellent choice.

Regards
Gemstone

Same thing happened to my 05 5.9. Check the connections regularly and you won't have a problem!

It's not a problem with the connections, the tube cracks just before the fitting at the head. There's an updated line avail. from Cummins for $26 that solves the problem. Replacement is super easy - maybe 5 minutes.
But it really has a very rare rate of occurrence.

Gemstone wrote:
Over 200K on the odometer, no major issues with my '05...Intercooler was replaced under warranty (bad design), fuel tube was replaced to #4 injector (bad design)...that is the extent of failures on my motor. No "regularly scheduled" maintenance, other than fluids, usually done by me. Still have the original injectors and batteries. It has proven to be an excellent choice.

Regards
Gemstone

Same thing happened to my 05 5.9. Check the connections regularly and you won't have a problem!

donn0128 wrote:
Not sure what transmission problems you thing you have heard about. The 48RE is nearly bullet proof as long as no one has added a tuner to the motor.
That year 5.9 was about as strong as they get. Many many of them have over 200K on then and still running strong.

X2 Adding a tuner released a lot of extra horsepower that purposely was not made available in the Ram truck. The extra horsepower likely caused a lot of transmission failures. ( The 47e tranny was weak to start with)

When I was a a gear head and had my hands under the hood, my truck driver father would ask: "What makes you think you are smarter than the people who built the darn thing?"

That is my now my position on tuners. You can not out engineer the engineers with good long term results.

Not sure what transmission problems you thing you have heard about. The 48RE is nearly bullet proof as long as no one has added a tuner to the motor.
That year 5.9 was about as strong as they get. Many many of them have over 200K on then and still running strong.

You really can't go wrong with that truck, especially the motor :)... unless you need alot of payload capacity. In which case, look for the same truck, but in a 3500 with dual rear wheels. The 2500 series diesels don't have much GVWR (about 8800) or rear axle weight capacity (about 6000), compared to their unloaded curb weight (about 7000 for a quad cab 4wd diesel), to give alot of payload capacity (only about 2000). The 1-ton dually version has about 11,000 GVWR, about 8000 rear axle weight rating and about 3500 lb payload capacity, for a quad cab 4wd diesel.

I'm at 177,000 and mostly typical repairs. I am pleased with my purchase.

Other than a water pump, and an idler pulley, ours has been completely free of problems.

From what I read,the 5.9 is one of the most reliable Cummins. I'm sure other will disagree.

As side note, the transmission problems were solved prior to 2005.

Over 200K on the odometer, no major issues with my '05...Intercooler was replaced under warranty (bad design), fuel tube was replaced to #4 injector (bad design)...that is the extent of failures on my motor. No "regularly scheduled" maintenance, other than fluids, usually done by me. Still have the original injectors and batteries. It has proven to be an excellent choice.

Regards
Gemstone