It's "good-bye" to my 2006 Tundra and hello Ram 2500 Diesel
I'd like to start off by saying "Thank-You!" to those of you that answered the towing questions that I posted.
Well I finally decided to say good-bye to my 2006 Tundra. It was a great truck and never gave me a stitch of trouble, but in the end it just didn't have the towing power that I needed. I started my new TV search looking at 1500's and even I fell in love with the new 2019 Ram 1500. Its a really nice truck that has some very impressive towing specs, as do the other 1500s (Ford, Chevy, etc.). Even though all the 1500's that we looked at could tow at least 10,000 lbs or close to it, they all had limited payloads when compared to a 250/2500. My wife and I are looking at trailers with a GVCW of around 8000 lbs and based upon what I've read that could equate to a tongue weight as high as 1200 lbs, which would eat up a lot of 1500's payload capacity. Since we plan upon taking very long trips (4,000 plus miles) I didn't think it would be a good idea to do so with a truck who's payload was almost max'd out.
So we shifted our search towards 250/2500 and 350/3500 trucks. We test drove a bunch of trucks and we found the ride of the 350/3500 a bit too harsh for my wife (she's got a really bad back), so we stayed with 250/2500's. We narrowed our selection down to the Ford F250 and Ram 2500. Both rode really nice but I preferred driving the Ram (it felt less huge), so we went with it. It also didn't hurt that RAM redesigned the 2019 2500 and as a result the dealerships were looking to move out the 2018s. Our only decision left was, do we want the 6.4L V8 or 6.7L Diesel. We got pricing on both and initially the price difference was over $9,000. Had that difference remained we probably would have purchased the 6.4L. Someone on this forum suggested that we should make an offer and be prepared to just walk out if rejected, then wait until the end of the month and make the offer again. Well that's exactly what we did and they accepted it our offer the second time. In the end the Diesel ended up only being about about $7000 more than the 6.4L gas. Admittedly, that is hard to accurately calculate because the trucks had slightly different options. A few people on this forum also said that 250/2500s generally aren't that more expensive than similarly equipped 1500s and they were right. In my case 2018 Ram 2500 Diesel Laramie only ended up costing $3000 more than the 2019 RAM 1500 Laramie 5.7 and E-torque.
The trailer will be next!
Thanks again for all of your thoughts and advice!
Bob
Well I finally decided to say good-bye to my 2006 Tundra. It was a great truck and never gave me a stitch of trouble, but in the end it just didn't have the towing power that I needed. I started my new TV search looking at 1500's and even I fell in love with the new 2019 Ram 1500. Its a really nice truck that has some very impressive towing specs, as do the other 1500s (Ford, Chevy, etc.). Even though all the 1500's that we looked at could tow at least 10,000 lbs or close to it, they all had limited payloads when compared to a 250/2500. My wife and I are looking at trailers with a GVCW of around 8000 lbs and based upon what I've read that could equate to a tongue weight as high as 1200 lbs, which would eat up a lot of 1500's payload capacity. Since we plan upon taking very long trips (4,000 plus miles) I didn't think it would be a good idea to do so with a truck who's payload was almost max'd out.
So we shifted our search towards 250/2500 and 350/3500 trucks. We test drove a bunch of trucks and we found the ride of the 350/3500 a bit too harsh for my wife (she's got a really bad back), so we stayed with 250/2500's. We narrowed our selection down to the Ford F250 and Ram 2500. Both rode really nice but I preferred driving the Ram (it felt less huge), so we went with it. It also didn't hurt that RAM redesigned the 2019 2500 and as a result the dealerships were looking to move out the 2018s. Our only decision left was, do we want the 6.4L V8 or 6.7L Diesel. We got pricing on both and initially the price difference was over $9,000. Had that difference remained we probably would have purchased the 6.4L. Someone on this forum suggested that we should make an offer and be prepared to just walk out if rejected, then wait until the end of the month and make the offer again. Well that's exactly what we did and they accepted it our offer the second time. In the end the Diesel ended up only being about about $7000 more than the 6.4L gas. Admittedly, that is hard to accurately calculate because the trucks had slightly different options. A few people on this forum also said that 250/2500s generally aren't that more expensive than similarly equipped 1500s and they were right. In my case 2018 Ram 2500 Diesel Laramie only ended up costing $3000 more than the 2019 RAM 1500 Laramie 5.7 and E-torque.
The trailer will be next!
Thanks again for all of your thoughts and advice!
Bob
