Christopher Wright
Adventurist
12" screen....... no more squinting to see where you are going. I wonder what voice they use for NAV. I yell at the one in my phone all the time, cause she is rude.
New 2019 Ram
- Thread starter Dave
- Start date
Gallowbraid
Adventurist
That Rebel...oh my...
kmacafee
Adventurist
As someone who is in the market for a 3/4 or 1 ton truck, I am amazed by how poor a reputation for reliability that Ram has. Consumer Reports, supposedly unbiased, ranks them significantly lower than Ford and even GMC/Chevy for reliability. I have a number of friends who own repair shops here who have suggested that, if I want a truck that will last and be reliable, avoid Dodge/Ram at all costs. They told me a few horror stories about late model Rams with significant repair issues. That must be why they are significantly cheaper than comparable Fords.
Not Ram bashing as I have never owned one and like how they look and drive. But if I'm going to invest $$$ in a new American pickup, I want to get past the hype and the marketing. Like all of you, I sure wish Toyota made a 3/4 or 1 ton truck -- they could own that market as well.
Not Ram bashing as I have never owned one and like how they look and drive. But if I'm going to invest $$$ in a new American pickup, I want to get past the hype and the marketing. Like all of you, I sure wish Toyota made a 3/4 or 1 ton truck -- they could own that market as well.
I can tell you I've put 30K on my RAM these last two years with ZERO issues. Maybe it's an anomaly.
That said, I think FORD charges WAY to much when comparing apples to apples. Their trucks are heinously overpriced IMO, and I hear similar horror stories about Ford and their PowerStroke. Or GM and their HD IFS trucks. Toyota is known for craptastic fuel economy, lousy brakes and bland styling. Land Rover has electrical gremlins (or did) and leaks. Jeep axles fail and the roofs leak.
There's lots of brand bashing, and fan boys. Truth is all brands have their quirks whether the faithful want to admit it or not. Buy what suits you and learn to live with whatever bugs that brand has.
One of the joys of modding a truck is taking any of those issues and making them better than OEM
kmacafee
Adventurist
Im staying away from diesels -- not towing anything and the increased cost of ownership and maintenance is a deal breaker.
I agree that there are anomaly's with every brand and any purchase is a compromise. And Ford prices are absolutely ridiculous -- it is hard to believe the prices being asked for high mileage F250 and 350's.
I have owned and modified a number of trucks over the years and I am comfortable with the quirks. But based on what I hear from the people who fix them, premature engine/tranny failures in Dodges seem to be more common.
I agree that there are anomaly's with every brand and any purchase is a compromise. And Ford prices are absolutely ridiculous -- it is hard to believe the prices being asked for high mileage F250 and 350's.
I have owned and modified a number of trucks over the years and I am comfortable with the quirks. But based on what I hear from the people who fix them, premature engine/tranny failures in Dodges seem to be more common.
I want to point out something here. There is NO SUCH THING as unbiased journalism, and I'd be willing to bet you that Ford and GM outspend FCA when it comes to courting the media. Like any other rag, I'd bet one could buy their way into favorable ratings with Consumer Reports. Just sayin'
Not that FCA/Dodge/Ram/Jeep is perfect. But I don't trust Consumer Reports.
What I do trust is my eyeballs. Fleet managers run two brands of trucks whether its the city or county or even dot gov. Ram and Ford. That I can see every time I drive down the road. Why is that? Cheaper? More reliable or easier to maintain?
I don't know, but I don't see a lot of those orgs running GM rigs in their fleets.
kmacafee
Adventurist
Ill have to disagree about Consumer Reports. There has never been any suggestion about them being anything other than what they say they are -- a non-profit that buys everything they test.
Fleet managers focus on one thing -- money. Whomever gives them the best deal wins which is why oil companies and public entities drive mainly Fords and some Dodges. There is a reason that Crown Vics and now Explorers are the primary vehicle driven by police departments nationwide -- money. In the 80's when I was a LEO, Ford simply outspent Chrysler/Plymouth in placing their cars in fleets -- we hated those early Fords -- brakes were awful and they couldn't get out of their own way. We nursed those old Dodges and Plymouths for as long as possible. Ultimately, the Crown Vic and Explorer were vastly improved and are now very very popular with the LEO's I know still working. And I suspect, with the exception of the Charger and Tahoe, Ford dominates the police package market.
Fleet managers focus on one thing -- money. Whomever gives them the best deal wins which is why oil companies and public entities drive mainly Fords and some Dodges. There is a reason that Crown Vics and now Explorers are the primary vehicle driven by police departments nationwide -- money. In the 80's when I was a LEO, Ford simply outspent Chrysler/Plymouth in placing their cars in fleets -- we hated those early Fords -- brakes were awful and they couldn't get out of their own way. We nursed those old Dodges and Plymouths for as long as possible. Ultimately, the Crown Vic and Explorer were vastly improved and are now very very popular with the LEO's I know still working. And I suspect, with the exception of the Charger and Tahoe, Ford dominates the police package market.
bigTpolecat
Adventurist
As a gov. worker one of my duties is writing the purchasing spec's for my fleet of utility service trucks. We are required (in our City) to use a "generic/non-specific" spec that doesn't intentionally keep any of the big 3 out of the running whenever possible but the final say in the purchase is the results of the competitive bid. Ford offers big incentives to government entities to reduce the final bid pricing. Why??? Because they know that their best advertising is exactly what Dave noticed, lots of fleet vehicles on the road with brand X's name on them. People tend to buy what they're familiar with, and if you have 20,000 guys across the country saying "...I beat the hell out of my XXXX truck at work, that rig just eats it up and keeps coming for more. The next one I buy is gonna be like my work truck...." what better advertising could any vendor ask for? Not to mention that most government fleets have an expiration date and they tend to turnover vehicles at the 5-7 year mark.
Another factor in the Ford/Dodge monopoly of government truck fleets is the F450/4500 - F550/5500 line of chassis cabs. GM simply does not build anything that competes offering only a truck with a maximum 13,500 GVWR. Bucket trucks, 3 or 4 yard dumps, service trucks, fire department brush trucks, 4WD ambulances and flatbeds, whatever bed configuration built on the truck the heavy pickup type chassis cab is completely dominated by Ford and Dodge so you see a lot of their vehicles. When Chevy brings in competition for the 15,000 to 19,000 GVWR vehicles you might see a change, but until then IMHO the government and utility market belongs to Ford and Dodge.
BoldAdventure
Adventurist
I can tell you I've put 30K on my RAM these last two years with ZERO issues. Maybe it's an anomaly.
That said, I think FORD charges WAY to much when comparing apples to apples. Their trucks are heinously overpriced IMO, and I hear similar horror stories about Ford and their PowerStroke. Or GM and their HD IFS trucks. Toyota is known for craptastic fuel economy, lousy brakes and bland styling. Land Rover has electrical gremlins (or did) and leaks. Jeep axles fail and the roofs leak.
There's lots of brand bashing, and fan boys. Truth is all brands have their quirks whether the faithful want to admit it or not. Buy what suits you and learn to live with whatever bugs that brand has.
One of the joys of modding a truck is taking any of those issues and making them better than OEM
I was a diehard GM guy, lifelong. But I agree with Dave. I'm on my second Ram truck, and I put A LOT of miles on both trucks, and had zero issues with either truck to date. The one issue I had with my current one, was user preventable.
Prior to FCA's involvement with Ram, I would have agreed that Dodge were crap boxes.
One thing I have noticed, coming to the Ram community and being a part of a lot of communities, is that Ram owners tend to be WAY less competent with their vehicles than GM & Ford owners who tend to do more work on their own vehicles. I see this a lot. Not trying to make a judgment, but it just seems that way on various forums and facebook groups. Like a collection of N00Bs.
I'll also say this about consumer reports. They have in the past compiled complaints about one of Ford's products, and said it was a terrible product, because 80% of the complaints were about the Bluetooth not working.
They have other questionable methods in regards to a lot of other products across the industry.
On a personal note, I do not believe the Toyota hype at all when it comes to their trucks. I see broken Tacoma's and Tundra's all the time.
I've seen that Consumer Reports ranking to, and just like with everything else, it needs to be taken with a grain of salt. People have already brought up methodologies used.
I'd also point out that reliability issues aren't necessarily universal across an entire brand's model lineup. Go look up the TSB's and recall's (found on the NHTSA website) for Ram/Chrysler vehicles; not all of the vehicles have same amount or type of problems. For example, the Jeep Wrangler and the Ram 2500/3500 seem to have far less issues than other FCA products. In fact, the Ram 2500/3500 really doesn't seem all that different from other heavy-duty trucks in terms of recall/TSB issues.
I agree the older Chrysler products weren't really known for their build quality. Compare a used 2005 Ram 2500 to a used 2005 Ford F-250; the Ford's of that era generally hold up much better compared to the Ram's. The newer trucks I think have really made huge improvements in their reliability and build quality, as have most of the domestic truck makers.
Also, when you compare reliability of different vehicles from different brands, you really need to make sure your comparison is apples-to-apples. Comparing the issues and breakdown's of a diesel 3/4 ton Ram to that of a naturally-aspirated gasoline 4runner or Tacoma is not fair IMHO. They're different vehicles and see different levels of abuse/use in ownership. Toyota vehicles, on average, might be a little bit more reliable, but then again they really haven't changed much in their vehicles over the last decade.
smlobx
Adventurist
I had a friend whose family had the regional Case heavy equipment dealership. One day I asked him how they always won the bids from local municipalities when it came to backhoes etc. He told me that the manufacturer allowed them to sell the equipment "at cost" and they made their profit on all the maintenance that was required because the workers beat the hell out of the equipment and didn't give a $hit... An interesting business model...
Uh, pardon me, but that is the American business model.
I worked at a local computer shop for a while and they used the same model. 5% above cost at most for the hardware. We had to to compete with Dell, Best Buy, etc.. The profit came from the ancillary services we offered.
I'm a service adviser at a GM dealership...I've got news...EVERY dealership (except Tesla, no idea who does their mechanical repairs) has a service drive.
I really don't think you can go wrong with the 3/4-1 ton trucks from any of the big three.
I grow weary of the IFS argument on the GM's. I rarely see any failures in the front suspension/steering. Somehow IFS works for other brands, including Toyota, until you get to a 3/4 ton truck, then it is a failure looking for a place to happen?
(steering on a GM 3/4-1 ton is a conventional steering gear, not rack and pinion) I prefer the ride quality of IFS over a solid front axle for a truck that sees 97% of its life connecting the dots on a map via pavement to get to the dirt. My truck is probably 8500 lbs in an off road adventure configuration...I'm not going rock crawling with it...I'm just trying to get to a spot off the beaten path, generally travelling on a marginally maintained dirt road. The idea behind my truck is to get me out of trouble, not go looking for it. I'm fortunate enough that I have a second OHV vehicle (Jeep) that fills that requirement.
The electronic gizmo's on all of the new trucks boggle my mind. Remote locking tailgates are all cool until the lock actuator fails with all of your gear locked in the bed.
BTW, the service department at all dealerships is where the $$$ is made to pay the dealership bills. Very little money is made off of new car sales.
I really don't think you can go wrong with the 3/4-1 ton trucks from any of the big three.
I grow weary of the IFS argument on the GM's. I rarely see any failures in the front suspension/steering. Somehow IFS works for other brands, including Toyota, until you get to a 3/4 ton truck, then it is a failure looking for a place to happen?
(steering on a GM 3/4-1 ton is a conventional steering gear, not rack and pinion) I prefer the ride quality of IFS over a solid front axle for a truck that sees 97% of its life connecting the dots on a map via pavement to get to the dirt. My truck is probably 8500 lbs in an off road adventure configuration...I'm not going rock crawling with it...I'm just trying to get to a spot off the beaten path, generally travelling on a marginally maintained dirt road. The idea behind my truck is to get me out of trouble, not go looking for it. I'm fortunate enough that I have a second OHV vehicle (Jeep) that fills that requirement.The electronic gizmo's on all of the new trucks boggle my mind. Remote locking tailgates are all cool until the lock actuator fails with all of your gear locked in the bed.
BTW, the service department at all dealerships is where the $$$ is made to pay the dealership bills. Very little money is made off of new car sales.
Kevin LaCroix
Adventurist
Ram and , to an extent, Chevy/GMC are starting to understand what the off-road market wants. Ford is stuck on the Raptor.
In the southwestern US you can throw a rock in a mall parking lot and have it bounce off of 4 Raptors. At the same time there are numerous desert race teams that use the Raptor as an "almost" out of the box fast chase vehicle...factory payload ratings be damned.