The Ram 3500 Is Textbook Outrageous
Engine: 6.7-liter I6, 400 hp and 1,000 lb-ft of torque / Transmission: Six-speed automatic / Fuel economy: not rated, but if you get 17 mpg you're doing well /Transfer case: part-time four-wheel-drive / Max Payload: 7,680 pounds / Max tow rating: 35,100 pounds / Base price: $36,540
Allow me to get up on my soapbox for a moment. I need it, you see, to peer over the tailgate of the Ram 3500, which is 40 inches from the ground—when it's down. I didn't measure the height of the cargo box, but I can tell you that when I needed to mark a post for a regulation basketball hoop (10 feet), I just stood on the bed, no ladder needed.
In just about every metric you care to name, the Ram 3500 occupies the outrageous end of the scale, a universe where everyone has a CDL and Andre the Giant was a 50th percentile male.
For instance, let's talk about that Cummins diesel. The standard version makes 370 horsepower and 850 lb-ft of torque. You'd think that would be sufficient, but I'm afraid not, for there is also a high-output version that cracks the four-digit torque barrier with 1,000 lb-ft at a sleepy 1,800 rpm. And that one makes 400 horsepower.
For some perspective, I recently tested the Jayco Seneca 37 RV, which rides on a Freightliner chassis and also uses a version of the Cummins 6.7—except that one makes 360 horsepower/800 lb-ft of torque. The Seneca's gross vehicle weight rating is 29,000 pounds and the Cummins moved it along just fine. So think about that: a detuned version of the engine in your Ram pickup is happy to propel a 29,000-pound house on wheels at highway speeds.
You can also get the Cummins in a Ram 2500 and there are plenty of reasons to do so, mainly involving the rear suspension. On 2500s, Ram uses a relatively supple five-link coil spring setup (or air bags). The 3500s use leaf springs with optional air bags, the ol' belt-and-suspenders approach.
The truck I drove didn't have the air bags, which allow softer leaf springs and facilitate lowering the rear end of the truck to load the bed or hook up a trailer. As it was, I imagine the 3500 would have a nice ride with 5,000 pounds in the bed, but the unladen ride is like being in a high building during a major seismic event. Far below you, heavy things are oscillating, the seismic plates of those leaf springs grinding a perpetual fault line that rattles the china up there in the penthouse.
There's a similar sensation from the Cummins—the accelerator pedal summons a distant relentless force from somewhere below the earth's mantle. The reactions are not immediate but they're impressive. It's like ringing the engine room on a fast transatlantic steamer. Flank speed, rudder hard to port, we're getting out of this Home Depot parking lot!
In my unscientific highway observations, I perceive that private long-haul freight companies favor Cummins Rams. These are the trucks you see out on the Interstate, hauling a 40-foot boat or a car carrier, refueling at the truck stop and racking thousand-mile days. That's where this truck would be happy, on the open road, stoically towing a gigantic prefab shed or a yacht.
The 6.7-liter Cummins has a reputation for indestructibility, and a cursory search of the classifieds turns up plenty of Cummins Rams with stratospheric odometer reading. A dealer in Tennessee has one for sale that has 534,000 miles on it. And, based on the gooseneck hitch in the bed, I doubt many of them were easy.
But for regular-truck chores, a Cummins Ram 3500 4x4 is drastic overkill. When I had to rent a 150-pound floor sander, I crammed it into the back of a Corolla Hatchback rather than use the Ram, simply because that 40-inch tailgate height meant that my smooth floors would come with a side order of hernias. Trying to back trailers into tight spots is complicated when your tow vehicle is more than 21 feet long by itself.
And at 78.4 inches tall, the Ram can't clear my local Bank of America drive-though ATM lane. Even if it could, you might not be able to reach the screen, way down there in the normal-truck atmosphere.
Look, this is a fantastic truck if you need it and a frustrating one if you don't. Like Liam Neeson in Taken, it has very particular set of skills. Commuting and light hauling are not among them.
Don't buy one of these because 3500 is a bigger number than 2500 and you want the bigger number on the side. Buy it because you have a CDL and four cars on a trailer that has to get to Topeka by Tuesday. Or you have a triple-axle RV trailer and you're setting off to tour the continent. Or you're a mason and 90 percent of the time you're driving around with a pallet of fieldstone in the bed.
But for everyone else, I'll simply point out that a Cummins 2500 can tow more than 19,000 pounds—and maybe that's enough.
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