New Tow Vehicle

I have a 3500 SRW Dodge Ram Crew Cab... I did the same as another poster on here and added a set of Loadrite 5000 to dampen the ride. Truck sits level when I add 25-30 psi in bags. I pulled once w/o the bags and decided it would be a bit better with the bags. I was right. Now 3400 miles into a cross country 3 mo trip and am extremely pleased with the ride.

Bags were fairly inexpensive (no air pump, I inflate them manually with my pancake compressor). If for somereason one should fail I can dump the other side and still tow fairly comfotably with the truck till I repair the leak.

best $250 I spent!

wkswenson wrote:
Not sure where the cutoff is, but it was "born" on Jan 2011.

I am fairly sure based on your build date it is not a HO. If it is it will have a HO tag on the tailgate.

Congrats on the new truck. Your going to love the 6.7 Cummins and the full time exhaust brake.
I have the same truck as you. Added Firestone air bags and what a difference in the ride and handling. Like day & night. Also when
driving at night the lights are not shinning at the sky. Also rode a lot better on some of the terrible roads that are out there.

Not sure where the cutoff is, but it was "born" on Jan 2011.

C Schomer wrote:
I love my airbags and I also added an exp. tank to them. The tank makes the bags totally unnoticeable when empty. I cut the ends off the bottom OLs and the bags are much softer than bouncing on the bottom OLs. The top OLs aren't bone jarring like the bottoms so I left them on. The Rancho 9000 shocks were icing on the cake. They are as valuable as the bags for tuning out a bad road. Craig

From what i have been told the ride is much better in the 4th gen VS the 3rd gen. I leave my bags at 5psi running solo and for a big truck the ride is very good. Had Ford friends ride with us that have a 09 KR 350 SRW and they were very impressed with the ride.

Nice looking rig. From the first photo, I agreed about the need for airbags. 2nd photo looks much more level.

I am surprised you don't notice more of a difference between the two trucks. Is your RAM an '11 or a '11.5 with the high output engine?

I love my airbags and I also added an exp. tank to them. The tank makes the bags totally unnoticeable when empty. I cut the ends off the bottom OLs and the bags are much softer than bouncing on the bottom OLs. The top OLs aren't bone jarring like the bottoms so I left them on. The Rancho 9000 shocks were icing on the cake. They are as valuable as the bags for tuning out a bad road. Craig

If you are happy with the ride leave it alone. If not get the 4600 Bilstien's they are worth it! Also the bags set at 30 psi will help.

Well the first pull with the truck is in the books. Jury is still out on air bags - not sure it really needs it any more. We did not feel the ride was any different from the Ford with the air bags. The ride was ok, with only bridge expansion joints a noticeable difference. Not sure if the difference is due to the air bags (ford) or the dodge being a 4x2 not a 4x4....

As a comparison to the 2002 F350:

Feel of Power: Not any real differences. The 7.3 had plenty of power including being able to increase speed even on steep hills at highway speeds. The Dodge just has power to spare as the 7.3 did. I did not really detect any significant differences here.

MPG: Again no real difference - we traveled the same 150 miles we travel twice a year for the last 6 years and have pulled in at 11-11.5 MPG with the ford and the dodge got the same at 11 mpg. This was pulling at 62ish, nice weather, no AC, and camper fully loaded with water, 2 generators, 55 gallon tank of water in bed of truck.

Noise: Here is where there was some difference. Both trucks really just purred along the highway with minimal noise. The ford had more highway noise in general but not much of a difference in engine noise. When asking for more power the ford would literally roar to life and in heavy pull it would be hard to carry on a conversation as the engine noise was loud. The same route and the Dodge the purr of the engine really was only a slightly louder purr when power was demanded from it.

Braking: No comparison - the Exhaust brake is amazing!

Overall the dodge is newer with many fewer miles so it is quitter than the ford was and well worth the upgrade.

Our pin weight estimate is around 3400 - but this is only a guess as we don't have a good scale around the house to run it over and find out exact details. We will be giving it a good test on Sunday as we will have in the bed:

50 Gallons of water (in separate tank)
Full size generator
few boards
Plus the pin weight (Camper is loaded with 45 gallons of water also)

We are heading to the race track about 100 miles away and a route we know very well (including all the bumps).