New set of wheels for the ranch

Jeff in TX

My old 2015 Ram 1500 Eco-diesel was beginning to show signs of struggles trying to pull the horse and loaded livestock trailers. My wife said it's time for and upgrade.   I upgraded to a new 2021 Ram 2500 Cummins Diesel. This makes towing the trailers a piece of cake.  The super cool new feature on this truck I'm trying to get used to is the engine brake for towing.  It really does assist nicely in slowing down the truck with a full trailer.  It is a much taller and bigger ride than my old 1500.  So far I really like it.  I added the air suspension in the rear and the grill guard.

rberglof

congrats, good looking truck!

sakodude

Nice wheels!

earlyagain

Engine brakes are a big help.

Jeff in TX

earlyagain said:

Engine brakes are a big help.

Yes they are, I've never heard of them on heavy duty trucks only 18-wheelers.  But this is my first 2500 series truck.

Wambli Ska

Damn nice ride!  ❤️❤️❤️

Justsomedude

My best friends dad would only buy Dodge Ram dually diesels for use on their farm. The last one I remember him buying had the engine brake. His only complaint was where they placed it. It was a small button near the radio and hvac controls. I also remember watching them use that truck for serious work and it would take all they threw at it, including the 30' trailer being loaded full of cattle.

earlyagain

Freind of my Dad had one of the original 1970's Dodge diesels. Still called a Power Wagon. Tiny Caterpillar engine, glow plugs, no turbo. Step on the accelerator for more smoke and noise. Didn't need an engine brake it was so slow.

Now they can tow a house uphill at a 100mph.....

CHIRO1989

Very nice, should last awhile. What kind of problems were you having with the 1500 and the ecodiesel?

Jeff in TX

The livestock trailer is 6K lbs empty.  Once loaded with cows it was very sluggish.  What folks don't remember is Ram did the same thing Volkswagen did with the emissions and got caught.  The changed the engine code three or four times so I went from 27 to 29 mpg with tons of torque to 19 to 21mpg and a lot less torque.  It just didn't have the power and torque that it had.  You could really feel it pulling.  Getting up to speed was dreadful. I got $9K is the eco-diesel lawsuit and applied that towards the new 2500 cummings diesel.

CHIRO1989

Huh, had not heard that, I don't suppose you could have chipped it back to the original specs you had?

Jeff in TX

CHIRO1989 said:

Huh, had not heard that, I don't suppose you could have chipped it back to the original specs you had?

Wow, did I try!  I was told on multiple occasions Ram set up the program to not let former firmware to be loaded.  I did get an off the market diesel module and it helped a tag but not a lot. My local Ram dealer is a small country dealer.  I know the mechanic well, he said he tried a couple of times to reload the original firmware on friends eco-diesels and would always get an error message it wasn't compatible.   After 130K miles I opted for a new truck.  $9K from the settlement and $22K trade in made it a bit more bearable! 

zorba

earlyagain said:

Freind of my Dad had one of the original 1970's Dodge diesels. Still called a Power Wagon. Tiny Caterpillar engine, glow plugs, no turbo. Step on the accelerator for more smoke and noise. Didn't need an engine brake it was so slow.

Now they can tow a house uphill at a 100mph.....

If it's not a CAT, its a DOG!

I wasn't aware of these...

earlyagain

The big cats are real rollers. 

I think these new oil burners have ultra sophisticated computer controlled ignition that controls engine and exhaust temps for efficiency thats light years ahead of glow plugs and iron lungs. Operating temps being a very big deal for diesels.