UPDATE! Picking up the 2015 Eco-Diesel Friday/Saturday! :)

I'm starting to see more around my area also. They are quiet and seem to have the same dual exhaust outlets as the Hemi trucks.
As far as payload, it would be nice if Ram would offer a HD payload package like the Ford does on the F150.

I now see at least 1 Eco Diesel a week so it looks like people are buying them.

Well I have a build date for the new truck/trucks LOL

The first one (Outdoorsman) and the one I'm not buying is to be built Oct.15 with a ship date of the 15th.

The second one (Laramie) and the one I am going to buy will be built on Oct. 18 with a ship date of the 22th. Dealer should have it some time in the Nov. then it gets sent to Line-X and Z-Bart so I should have it about a week after that. I ordered the factory spray in liner but there was a problem getting it built so they took that out of the build.

Don

Hybridhunter wrote:

RangerGress wrote:
I'm probably a good data point for you guys. I have a Ram 1500 Ecodiesel 2WD Laramie. Every month I do a 7-16hr roadtrip with a 24' enclosed car hauler weighing 7400-7800lbs. Terrain is half flat half rolling.

The truck is really terrific. My previous tow vehicle was a 2000 Ford F-250 diesel. The comparison is night and day. The Ram makes for a quiet, luxurious roadtrip. It drives like a big sedan and it's towing manners are sure and confidence inspiring. I used to arrive at events half deafened by the roar of the engine and tired from being jarred by the stiff suspension. Also, F-250 handled like a squirmy ferry boat requiring constant attention vs. the sure and confident sedan-like ride of the Ram. The constant focused attention and steering microcorrections, and the kidney punches of each freeway expansion crack made long roadtrips nothing to look forward to.

The towing mpg of the Ecodiesel is slightly better than the pre-EPA F-250 which is a pretty high standard. I get 13.5-14 towing at 60-64mph.

My tow vehicles have always done occasionally daily driver duty, but the Ram has really grown on me. The normal DD is a old restored BMW. But for the past 6 months the BMW has sat in the garage and I've driven the Ram.

My commute is 12mi half surface streets half highway. I get 24mpg. If I try, I can get 28mpg. It's pretty amazing. The F-250 got 12mpg in DD mode. On the freeway I can get 30mpg if I keep it below 70mph.

I do not have air suspension and maybe I should have bought the option. I've not had good luck with air suspension over the years so I grew to distrust it. The truck would not have handled the tongue weight of the trailer w/o some help so I put airbags inside the rear coil springs. Cheap and easy. The airbags turned 3" of rear spring compression into 1". 3" put me almost on the bumpstops and that wouldn't have been safe.

A few comments - Accurate description of the F250, from that era.

I assume you typo'd the F250 DD mileage? 12 mpg? should be 22 I would think?

An overloaded truck is smoother than un high payload truck. It sounds like you are not using a WDH? That seems a little crazy with a 750#+ tongue? (air bags level, but don't remedy the overloading, just mask it). Why didn't you got with a WDH instead of airbags? or both?

That mileage is about 20% better than I get with the 3.7 maxed out with a car hauler of similar size. Unloaded mileage seems about the same 20%. By your description, you drive a bit more conscientiously than I, so call it 15% better, and much more "relaxed" at lower rpm for sure. Sounds like the perfect ruck for what you do.

DD mileage for the F-250 as stated, 12mpg. Maybe 14 on it's best day. The big heavy truck and it's big 7.3l engine was not in it's element in the stop and go of surface streets. Entirely unloaded at cruising at 60mph I wouldn't have got 22mpg. Heck I wouldn't have gotten 20mpg.

Yes, I use a WDH, but that's not going to help level the truck much. A WDH doesn't really shift that much weight, even if you set it up fiercely tight bu using the tongue jack. Much of the WDH's effectiveness is that it gets TIGHTER when the rig porpoises or sways. W/o using the tongue jack my WDH shifts only 60lbs. Using the tongue jack to lift the center of the rig before attaching the draw bars I get about 180lbs xferred. I did a bunch of tests when I first got the truck. I found that with no airbags I got 1" of front lift and 3" of rear sag. 4" of total delta. With the WDH I had 3" of total delta. With the airbags and WDH I had 1" of total delta.

Tongue weight a little more than 750lbs. 800-850 depending on the roadtrip.

Re. Overloaded. Depends on the definition. I'm within OEM spec, even if it's not by much. Certainly looked overloaded with 3" of rear sag and 1" of front lift.

The guys with OEM air suspension say that the system becomes unhappy at ~2000lbs of additional load. That doesn't apply to me because I have springs, but it might be of interest to those considering that option.

RangerGress wrote:
I'm probably a good data point for you guys. I have a Ram 1500 Ecodiesel 2WD Laramie. Every month I do a 7-16hr roadtrip with a 24' enclosed car hauler weighing 7400-7800lbs. Terrain is half flat half rolling.

The truck is really terrific. My previous tow vehicle was a 2000 Ford F-250 diesel. The comparison is night and day. The Ram makes for a quiet, luxurious roadtrip. It drives like a big sedan and it's towing manners are sure and confidence inspiring. I used to arrive at events half deafened by the roar of the engine and tired from being jarred by the stiff suspension. Also, F-250 handled like a squirmy ferry boat requiring constant attention vs. the sure and confident sedan-like ride of the Ram. The constant focused attention and steering microcorrections, and the kidney punches of each freeway expansion crack made long roadtrips nothing to look forward to.

The towing mpg of the Ecodiesel is slightly better than the pre-EPA F-250 which is a pretty high standard. I get 13.5-14 towing at 60-64mph.

My tow vehicles have always done occasionally daily driver duty, but the Ram has really grown on me. The normal DD is a old restored BMW. But for the past 6 months the BMW has sat in the garage and I've driven the Ram.

My commute is 12mi half surface streets half highway. I get 24mpg. If I try, I can get 28mpg. It's pretty amazing. The F-250 got 12mpg in DD mode. On the freeway I can get 30mpg if I keep it below 70mph.

I do not have air suspension and maybe I should have bought the option. I've not had good luck with air suspension over the years so I grew to distrust it. The truck would not have handled the tongue weight of the trailer w/o some help so I put airbags inside the rear coil springs. Cheap and easy. The airbags turned 3" of rear spring compression into 1". 3" put me almost on the bumpstops and that wouldn't have been safe.

A few comments - Accurate description of the F250, from that era.

I assume you typo'd the F250 DD mileage? 12 mpg? should be 22 I would think?

An overloaded truck is smoother than un high payload truck. It sounds like you are not using a WDH? That seems a little crazy with a 750#+ tongue? (air bags level, but don't remedy the overloading, just mask it). Why didn't you got with a WDH instead of airbags? or both?

That mileage is about 20% better than I get with the 3.7 maxed out with a car hauler of similar size. Unloaded mileage seems about the same 20%. By your description, you drive a bit more conscientiously than I, so call it 15% better, and much more "relaxed" at lower rpm for sure. Sounds like the perfect ruck for what you do.

Fast Mopar wrote:

Interesting comment here about the anticipated payload. Many here complain about the low payload ratings of Ecodiesel Ram 1500's. Just today I looked at my coworker's truck. He has a new F150 crew cab XLT Ecoboost 4WD. It is very conservatively equipped (no leather, no navigation, basic XLT). His payload sticker shows 1287 lb, which is within a few lb of my loaded 2004 Ford Freestar minivan. So, if this basic F150 4WD crew cab Ecoboost has a payload of 1287 lb, why isn't the whole world screaming about how low it is?

The difference being, if you order the correct package for your needs with the Ford, you can have a Crew Cab 4X4 with 2000# of payload. The mall crawler versions of any brand have pretty weak payloads FWIW.

Another PHUN thing about this state, if Don wants a 10K plate, $15 at the local DMV registration office, he would have a 10K legal plate on his new truck!

I've got a 26K plate on a rig with an 18200 manufacture plate, 14K on my old one ton, my 96 and 88 9200 gvwr sw rigs had 12 and 10K plates. THe only anomoly is my 2000 c2500, since it weighs 4700 lbs, I have an 8K plate, but like the example I used for Don, $15, I could put a 10K plate on it. As of now, I am only legal to 8000 lbs, not the 8600 on the door sticker!

Marty

goducks10 wrote:

gsxr1300 wrote:

goducks10 wrote:

BillyW wrote:

gsxr1300 wrote:

nevadanick wrote:
Gsxr1300, tires and registration are the only legalalities to be concerned with. Payload means nothing legally.

Being over payload limit puts you over your gvwr that's on your registration.

Must be a local thing.

That's what I was thinking. Doesn't exist here in Oregon. Pay the same for registration for a Prius or 3500.

you pay the same but it probably shows the GVWR on the registration
that it the max your vehicle can weigh fully loaded per the manufacturer.

Nope. We don't register on anything other than what it is, i.e. truck, passenger car or motorcycle. Makes no difference. I have nothing on my registration that say anything about weight.

There may be something for F550 type trucks but that's not the average 2500-3500 owner.

If you were in Washington st, you pay tonneage on ALL trucks in 2000 lbs increments from 4000 on up. Your base is 1.5 times the tare of the rig to the next highest ton. If Dons new truck weighed 5000 per Dodge, then he would have an 8K plate, and be legal to 8K lbs gvw. Door sticker be danmed! The st patrol does not recognize manufactures numbers as anything more than warranty or performance factors. If his truck weighs more than about 5200-5300 lbs, he would have a 10K plate! up to around 6700 or so tare lbs.

I have yet to see a state have anything close to a gcwr rating in there books.

Marty

Yes, thanks Ranger for the post.

I've always been interested in that diesel, but need more payload in the truck for all the junk we carry and the high tongue weight of my 7500# trailer (1150#).

Out of curiosity, what is the payload listed on your yellow doorjamb sticker?

I understand you are using airbags to help with the 3" of rear sag your trailer puts on the truck. I don't suppose you've taken the rig to a CAT scale and weighed it?

I have the 3.55 rear end. I figured that with 8 gears the engine could happily downshift if it wanted a higher rpm. If a person spent time on hills so severe that 1st gear wasn't low enough, then I guess that would be the time for 3.92.

The warts. If you poke around the relevant forums you'll find folks complaining about CELs. I've no idea how many people have this trouble, because most truck owners aren't in the forums and people w/o a problem don't post about it. That said, I have an intermittent CEL. I don't recall the code off the top of my head, but it was something I judged as non-critical.

A lot of folks are getting the problem fixed with a software update. Those that are hosed have trucks at dealers that decided that some piece of hardware was also needed, and since this is the first model year for the truck, RAM is struggling with spare parts inventory. My estimate of the situation is that if that latter group had just done the software update, most of them would have been fixed.

Heck, in car repair the % of perfectly serviceable parts that are replaced as part of a repair is pretty darn high.

Engine management is complicated as hell. The average consumer expects to take a problem to a dealer and have them execute a 100% sure solution the first time. But the real world doesn't work like that. Every complicated system has quirks. It takes time to figure out what is the genuine source of a problem, vs. time and energy wasted trying to fix symptoms.

I've carefully monitored the behavior of the CEL over the past couple of months. The truck's power and mpg efficiency are unimpaired. The CEL seems to be related to going easy on the truck, which by nature is how I drive a DD. It doesn't occur when towing.

I'm a couple thousand miles out from the 10k oil change. I figure I'll bring the intermittent CEL to the dealer's attention then. The longer I wait the more spare parts inventory I'll have, and the more experience RAM will have with the problem.