do you believe consumer reports???

[RonD]

Vehicle problems experienced probably depend at least as much, perhaps more on driver rather than truck brand.



I've put a total of 670k miles on three Dodge Rams and never experienced a fraction of the problems that some TDR members report.



Evidently, more bad drivers bought the hd ram diesel in consumer reports than the other brands then? Because they're bad drivers, they had more problems, became disgruntled, and thus filled out the survey. Thus the bad report card. You disagree with the bad report card based on your 670k miles of trouble free experience. OK.



I only have 50k on my '08 6. 7 and it hasn't been trouble free - mostly emissions related which are issues that aren't fixable. Think about that, not fixable. If it's not fixable it must be the drivers fault. The regen didn't complete because me the driver wasn't working the truck hard enough, so the sensor/filter/whatever plugged up. "These trucks were meant to be beat" was what the tech said to me - my bad. Course that was the early days < 1k, there were some absurd # of regen attempts and no completions and flash #x of #x+20 was supposed to correct it... ...



So, the best thing to do is to become a good driver and don't idle, no short trips, work it hard for its limited purpose, run the exhaust brake, heck avoid using the cruise control so that the VGT keeps on working. And use the 13 year old but reliable gasser for getting groceries. Works for me.



Guessing a lot of your 670k was prior to the 6. 7?

Your truck is about 4 years old, with 50k, your driving it. The question is how do you use the truck?, you may have a Dealer problem as updated flashes, or a service department that only knows how to do a parts replacement, not a fix, give some info as to how it's used, you may get somewhere with that.

 

[HBarlow]

Ron,

Your post above somehow combined my post with DBithell's and makes it appear as all my post. This is my post:

Originally Posted by HBarlow #ad
[/I][/B][/URL]
Vehicle problems experienced probably depend at least as much, perhaps more on driver rather than truck brand.

I've put a total of 670k miles on three Dodge Rams and never experienced a fraction of the problems that some TDR members report.

The rest was BBithell's reply.

 

[RonD]

I was replying to DBithell, Ron

 

[DBithell]

I have 115k on my '08 and it has been trouble free. I know better than to use it or any truck with a large, heavy diesel engine with a huge cast iron block as a grocery getter.



If you bought one thinking it was a good fit as a commuter car or for running short trip errands you made the wrong choice. The trucks work great when they are highway driven enough to complete the regen cycles but are really intended to be used for towing heavy trailers. They are working trucks.



Cummins and Dodge didn't have a meeting and decide to install all that emissions crap on their trucks because they were bored or had too much money to spend. It was mandated by the federal government driven by tree huggers. Cummins and Dodge did the best engineering job they knew how to do to meet outrageous standards in a short period of time.

Harvey - Well Said - Thanks.



Slowly coming to grips with the fact - 6. 7 wasn't a good choice for me. Have taken great care of this truck - but limit it's use (duty cycle) to the highway these days and really do enjoy it for that.

Only true design flaw other than the tree hugger stuff is the front side windows that make the "whoop whoop" sound in a good crosswind when driven at speed. Otherwise a great truck. Was at an auto show yesterday, thank goodness I didn't spring the $$'s for that Ford 6. 7 - would have to be a rocket scientist to work on that thing. Makes the duramax look simple. The Cummins is hands down the best available for it's simplicity if nothing else.



I truly believe in the duty cycle arguments. Those same arguments make me really question the manuafacturers selling diesels in the high end suv market. Mercedes, BMW, Audi, VW all seem to be pushing them and I can't see how those could possibly be good choices for anyone.



Have a good one all.

 

[HBarlow]

It's an awful shame that you invested the price of a new Ram diesel if you can't use it anyway you want to. I sympathize with that issue.

Perhaps over time you'll be able to develop a duty cycle that makes a fair compromise between your wants and the demands of the regeneration counter in your truck's ecm. All that should really be required, I think, is one highway trip each week of about 20 or 30 minutes steady cruise driving each way for a total of 40 minutes.

If you have gauges installed, particularly a pyro gauge, you will be able to determine from egt when the truck is in a regen cycle. It is not imperative but desirable to allow the ecm to complete the regen when you can. The counter is programmed to allow you to stop and turn the engine off once or twice during the cycle, it will restart the regen, but too many interruptions will cause it to grow frustrated and terminate the attempt.