Ram 2500 Gearing

[camp-n-family]

Just returned from a 3400km trip which took us through some pretty good hilly areas around the Finger Lakes of New York. I tow with the combo in my signature. Trailer weighs 7600lbs loaded.

Overall the truck towed ok but there were a couple of hills where it really struggled. It is the smaller 5.7 Hemi engine but I never encountered this problem with my old similarly powered Tundra. The Tundra pulled the TT fine which is why I went with the Hemi instead of the diesel. (6.4 was impossible to find at the time of purchase) I'm wondering if there is a problem or if it's just the tall 2nd gear.

On 2 seperate occasions we had to start a climb of a fairly steep, long hill from a stop. The truck would pull hard and accelerate quickly in 1st up to around 5500rpm and then shift into 2nd. That's when it would struggle. The Tundra would continue to pull hard and accelerate, then shift into 3rd etc. The Ram just died and couldn't even hold speed. The shift into 2nd would drop the RPMs right down to 2500, out of the power band and it would bog down. Speed would keep decreasing but it wouldn't shift back to first. There was no way to get it into the higher RPMs of 2nd gear where the power is. I had to drop it into 1st and was stuck holding it at 5000rpm (~25mph) to climb the hill. The drop in RPM between 1st and 2nd is too great.

Is it normal for this truck and what others have experienced? I expected better. It was a fairly steep grade each time but only pulling 7600lbs of its rated 13,500lbs. The Ram does weigh 800lbs more than the Tundra did and has 4.10 vs 4.30 rear gearing but I still would have thought it could accelerate uphill, or at least hold speed.

[ShinerBock]

jerem0621 wrote:
IIRC...Ram responded to TFL and said the truck handled the hill as designed...the software is designed to keep the engine from turning high RPM for long grades...basically they have a slow and steady approach to hill climbing.

This is what happens when people want long 100k miles warranties or life long warranties so they only have themselves to blame. The truck maker will stack the odds in their favor with computer nanny's to ensure there is no possible way they will be paying out during the warranty period or at least lower the chances of them paying out.

Constant high RPMs will damage an engine although not nearly as bad as that short period of time (10-15 minutes) that your engine oil takes to get to operating temp coming from a cold start(never rev your engine too high during this time). Will constant towing of a modern engine past 5,000 rpm on long grades make it have a catastrophic engine failure before 200k miles? I highly doubt it from all the engines I have tested as long as you change the fluids on the "severe" cycle and keep the engine from getting too hot. However, you better believe Ram will stack the odds in their favor especially if one little low cost program of the ECM can make their chances of paying out of pocket on a warranty decrease dramatically.

[jerem0621]

It's probably doing exactly what the Ram engineers designed the tow/haul function to do.

When TFL tested the 6.4 Ram it made the Ike Gauntlet run about a minute slower than the competition.

IIRC...Ram responded to TFL and said the truck handled the hill as designed...the software is designed to keep the engine from turning high RPM for long grades...basically they have a slow and steady approach to hill climbing.

Someone please correct me if I am wrong.

Thanks!

Jeremiah

[bguy]

Did you stand on it?
Did you try manually selecting 2nd?

[camp-n-family]

Yup, tow/haul mode was definately on but skipping to 3rd is what it felt like. Is a 1-3 shift normal out of tow/haul mode?

[jrp26789]

Did you have the tow haul engaged? Seems like it skipped second.