Brake

[MerkelG]

Coasting down the hill from my house at fifty. Exhaust brake on in first position does not engage. Traveling with cruise control on down hill picking up speed transmission downshifts. Turing cruise off or cancel, transmission does not up shift. Normal? Thanks! 2015 2500

 

[Hoefler]

turn on the tow haul, totally changes how it shifts and engages the exhaust brake.

 

[MerkelG]

turn on the tow haul, totally changes how it shifts and engages the exhaust brake.

Even running empty at seventy down hill it must be in tow haul to engage?

 

[Badunit]

Get above 1500 RPM and it should engage. I have been wondering the same thing about my nearly new truck. I was in hilly PA last weekend which gave me a chance to try it out. It worked one day but not the next and I thought something went bad. But after getting home on Monday I read about 1500 RPM. If I downshift to get the revs up, it engages for me.

 

[kthaxton]

My brake disengages around 1100-1200 rpm.

 

[Cummins12V98]

Mine pops out at 13mph on my 15 RAM with 4:10's.

 

[Hoefler]

When running out of T/H, the exhaust brake will only engage in the highest gear attained until the RPMs bottom out. With T/H engaged, the exhaust brake will continue to downshift the transmission and engaged until second gear is reached and the RPMs bottom out. I have 3.73s, mine will brake down to about 12 mph. Touch the brake pedal, the exhaust brake will become more aggressive. I always run with T/H engage and the exhaust brake on full, never in auto.

 

[Texaspsdx]

I had been playing with my brake also, glad to know how to make it work now.

 

[grabinov]

Coasting down the hill from my house at fifty. Exhaust brake on in first position does not engage. Traveling with cruise control on down hill picking up speed transmission downshifts. Turing cruise off or cancel, transmission does not up shift. Normal? Thanks! 2015 2500

Regardless of the position of the switch - even on the full ON position (first press of the switch) - the exhaust brake will not engage at any speed or any RPM unless YOU accelerated to over about 22 mph using the throttle pedal. Try this: Come from a stop and roll down your hill without ever accelerating (much) with the pedal, with the brake on and the Tow Haul on. You'll roll at whatever speed the trucks attains and your exhaust brake will never come on.

Now try this: Come off the stop and ACCELERATE YOURSELF to over 22mph using the accelerator pedal (scary down a steep hill I know). Now let off and the exhaust brake will quickly come on and behave exactly as you'd hope.

This is both dangerous and worthless if you have a trailer, but it's how the system works. Who is going to accelerate a heavy trailer DOWN a hill in order to attain the speed for the brake to come on!!! If I did that on the hill by MY house, no brake in the world would ever get me stopped in the distance I have left. This would be SO easy to fix if RAM were interested. It's just programming. the brake itself works great.

 

[gsbrockman]

The exhaust brake characteristics you guys are complaining about must be 68RFE related as my my Aisin equipped truck does none of that.

 

[kthaxton]

Yeah, all of these descriptions seem odd to me (I have a 68 RFE), and at least when I pay attention, my EB comes on every time I let off the go pedal, unless I am below 1100-1200 rpm range, and of course, the gear you are in will determine what that rpm is.

With that said, I believe that when I am going down hill, cruise control on, EB off, it tends to shift down more often to maintain speed, and it doesn't always immediately upshift at the bottom of the hill unless I accelerate, but it does on it's own eventually.

 

[AfterBurner]

I descend a steep hill when leaving my house and I've noticed the EB won't kick on if the truck is cold. If the truck warms up before I leave, the EB will work right away.

 

[RustyJC]

I had been playing with my brake also, glad to know how to make it work now.

Hey, Ron, good to see you here on the TDR. Welcome aboard!

Rusty

 

[MJWenrich]

Re: the first question about the cruise, mine will downshift when it gets about 5mph over your set speed. My 04.5 does that as well. Surprised me on the older when that happened. Thought I broke something. Actually a good feature I believe. Don't know about the upshift part but it may be just remembering where it is at the time you turn it off and that you want to stay in that gear. Just a guess though.