2014 Ram Ecodiesel

uintafly wrote:

Tystevens wrote:

goducks10 wrote:
Well said. My son is the perfect example of a potential Ecodiesel buyer. They have a 12 Ram 1500 5.7 right now. It's their family vehicle. Wife drives it to work, son take company car. They have a 17' ski/fish boat they need to tow. Can't be more than 3000-3500lbs. He borrows my utility trailer for yard stuff. They aren't big people. I'm guessing total passenger weight around 400-450lbs. A Ram EcoDiesel with a payload around 11-1200lbs would serve them well. Spread the camping gear out between the boat and truck plus the 350lbs for the boats TW and they'd easily be under the Rams CCC. Plus they could easily pull 18-20mpg towing. They used to tow and camp with a Pathfinder so any truck is a step up for convenience.

Not everyone buys a 1/2 ton to tow 7000lbs.

Yep, I agree completely. I'd expect your example describes the great majority of 1/2 ton pickup owners, myself included. I'm not exaggerating when I say that 75% of the houses on my block have a 1/2 ton or larger pickup, and I can only think of one that tows more than probably 5k miles a year.

We drive our 1/2 tons about 15k miles a year combined; only probably 1k of that is spent towing 6k lbs. The rest its commuting, projects, family trips w/o the TT, driving to school, whatever. For our purposes, something that tows 6k lbs marginally well but is otherwise ideal (and relatively efficient) for 95% of its use is a lot better than driving around in a 10 mpg hd tow machine. Right tool for the job. Just because the Ecodiesel can't tow huge weights doesn't mean it is a useless product. Maybe just not what a specific person is after!

We must live in the same neighborhood. I agree that for the vast majority of people a 1/2 ton is enough to meet the needs, it's one of the reasons maxing out my payload for the 3k miles I may need to in a year is a fair trade off to not having to drive around a 3/4 ton. But you have to admit, seeing a sticker on a truck showing 850 lbs. payload is kind of funny. If your friend bought one you would tease him a bit right? Even if secretly being jealous of his good gas mileage the other 12k miles a year.

Funny, it must be a suburban Utah thing. I should re-state, however, that a couple of the guys on my street are contractors, and tow quite a bit (they all have 1 ton diesels, though). But the recreational towing is minimal!

Re: payload on the Ram, I'd probably only give him a hard time about it if he were hooking up to tow something or we were on a moving project. But I'd expect a blank stare in return -- I'm always surprised how much people don't know anything about their vehicles! For example, about a year ago a neighbor got a new F150, and I was asking him how he liked it, etc., and he actually had to look at the window sticker in his glove box to confirm what engine it had (he only thought it to be a V8; I knew it was a 5.0, but I didn't want to be a smart-alec).