Instrumented Test
It’s pretty clear (or should be) that this is not the sort of truck that one would call a lifestyle vehicle—i.e., not a truck you’d expect someone to use as a car substitute. The Ram 3500 is the sort of truck that gives even a temporary owner a powerful urge to stop off at Tractor Supply Co. for a Carhartt jacket, steel-toed work boots, and rawhide gloves. And maybe 20 rolls of barbed wire, a couple dozen bags of cement, and one of every welder they sell. That’s what this big Ram is all about: work. You can outfit the interior with lots of fancy options—our test truck included $18,045 in extras, but most of that total went to work-related enhancements. Still, upscale features like leather, navigation, heated seats, premium audio, and Uconnect telematics spread only a thin veneer of civilization over a primordial brute with a work ethic that makes your average Calvinist look like a slacker.
To put the Ram 3500 into perspective, here are some noteworthy numbers: 385 horsepower, 900 lb-ft of torque, up to 7390 pounds of payload capacity, 31,210 pounds of maximum towing capacity. The turbo-diesel V-8s in the Ford and GM behemoths huff up more horsepower than does the Ram’s 6.7-liter straight-six, but the Cummins engineers keep mining more torque, with an increase of 35 lb-ft over the 2015 version. That increase is just enough to give this Ram a 40-lb-ft advantage over Ford’s Power Stroke V-8, although we should add that there are two tamer versions of the Cummins 6.7-liter six: 350 hp/660 lb-ft and 370 hp/800 lb-ft. The max Cummins gives this test truck a smallish edge in torque over Ford’s F-350, which helps yield a big edge in towing (3610 pounds, assuming both were set up for gooseneck trailers) but a sizable disadvantage in payload (990 pounds) to the F-350 we tested recently.
Hook this baby up to certain riverbanks and you could change state boundaries. But again, this is no work-on-Monday, cruise-on-Sunday ride. A mile or two on almost any surface is enough to tell you that no pavement irregularity is too small for the suspension to ignore.
To be fair, suspension elements designed to support near-four-ton payloads are going to be stiff when there’s nothing in the cargo bed. Nevertheless, the Ram’s ride quality is something to be endured rather than enjoyed. And while the Cummins turbo-diesel is nothing if not manly, it will never be mistaken for a gasoline engine. It’s not as noisy as pre-common-rail diesels, but it leaves no doubt that what’s going on under the hood does not involve spark plugs. GM’s diesel heavy-duty pickups, the Chevy Silverado 3500 and GMC Sierra 3500, are both quieter and smoother on lumpy surfaces than their Ram and Ford rivals.
Diesels are also about efficiency, of course, and the Ram surprised us by logging 16 mpg over the course of our test, albeit almost always unladen. No surprise about acceleration, though: The zero-to-60-mph sprint consumed 8.6 seconds—about what you’d expect from a vehicle weighing well over four tons. Ford’s F-350 Super Duty, which weighed 100 pounds less, hit the mile-a-minute mark almost a second quicker. But the big Ford was substantially thirstier than the Ram, recording 12 mpg. (There are no EPA ratings for trucks in this class.)
As you’d expect of a four-door, long-bed behemoth dualie, the Ram’s responses are deliberate. Grip—0.70 g on the skidpad—is so-so, despite the substantial contact patches provided by six Nexen Roadian HTX tires (235/80R-17). And stopping distances are typical for this class—206 feet from 70 mph, or two-thirds the length of a football field. Although they suffered no fade, our Ram’s brakes shuddered with hard applications as the rear axle hopped to a stop.
The big work ethic that goes with an HD turbo-diesel carries a pretty big price tag. In any of the three big boys that make up this all-domestic class, the diesel engine alone costs well over $8000. In our Ram test truck the Cummins added $8995 to the bottom line, almost half of the $18,045 options total. The Aisin six-speed automatic was $2595, auto-leveling rear air suspension was $1595, and dual rear wheels added $1200. Our as-tested total crested $75,000.
All of the foregoing emphasizes the Ram’s big-job capabilities. Just be sure your jobs are as big as the truck—and that they pay well.
