RAM EcoDiesel a Flop for Towing

jus2shy wrote:
I dunno. It made it up the mountain just fine. No CEL. It was loaded for bear with 2 large guys, 7,200 lbs trailer, so it was at capacity. Maintained over 45 mph over the whole run meeting SAE towing standards. Did the run at supposedly 50% better fuel economy (If you can trust the computer on both trucks). Truck was always designed to be a more fuel efficient truck than its competition. Seems to have done its job and met its requirements. Hosts say that the vehicle towed stable and introduced no drama. The engine was sedate and the only tell-tale sign that it's at its limit was the fact they weren't flying up the mountain at 60mph or better. Doesn't seem like a flop to me, but the F-150 would certainly have done the job faster.

Now what would be interesting is testing the efficiency of both trucks, have them side by side with the same load and driven up the mountain at the same speeds (RAM floored and Ford just throttling to match the RAM). Then we can see if that supposed 50% better fuel economy on the RAM would hold up. I'm figuring it would fall back to only 25 or 30% better fuel economy on the RAM.

I believe you have to be towing the Davis Dam and maintain a minimum speed of 40 mph to be SAE compliant.

I'm not a bit surprised with this trucks performance with pulling a grade with this load that has to be running at WOT to maintain 45-50 mph is not it's strength, but it made 6.1 mpg doing it.

I also went back and watched the Ford 2.7 EcoBoost pull the same grade and the comments were they could have easily exceeded the speed limit, but made 4.3 mpg doing it. I would give the nod to the 2.7 EB for towing performance of these two trucks.

I'm not bringing the GMC Denali into this mix since it has a different market.