ramffml
Senior Member
- Joined
- Jul 12, 2019
- Posts
- 2,773
- Reaction score
- 5,017
- Location
- ramforum
- Ram Year
- 2019
- Engine
- hemi 5.7
Every thing is set up properly. The truck is level with the air suspension and WDH. When in Alabama, Mississippi, and Florida it towed really nice. The problem is that I live in Arizona and everywhere I travel I have mountains to climb. That is when she struggles. If I leave the cruise control on it will be at 42 - 4400 RPM all day long trying to maintain speed. To keep it from screaming I just let it slow down when going over a pass and large prolonged elevation changes so that I can control the RPM. I don’t have any bounce or sway. It tows wonderful on flat level roads and never gets out of 7th gear. If I have any incline whatsoever it is in 6th gear until I hit the big climbs then it will downshift again and be in the 42 - 4400 rpm range. Not sure how good it is to have the RPM that high all day long. My oil life went from 100% to 12% over that trip to Florida so I know the engine was working very hard.
To be honest I would never ever use cruise while towing. There are a lot of minor dips and inclines in a road that cruise control will blindly (stupidly) try to maintain an exact speed over, it's much easier on your truck to "run" down the dip and "coast" up the blip. Your speed may vary, but if you're in truck traffic they'll probabyl be doing the same thing anyway. Bonus points for saving gas
Your experience sounds like mine, just ahead 1 gear (I have a 3.21) so I normally tow in 6th though 25% of my last trip was in OD which was a shock for me.
I had to get over the screaming RPMs as well. I think it hurts me more than the engine, as normally if my truck goes past 2000 RPMs then something is wrong and I'm in a hurry. But at 4400 RPM its making pretty much peak power for towing so that's where it wants to be at if you're working it hard.
The biggest thing is to pay attention to your temps, oil and transmission. If your oil starts bumping past 250 then definitely change to a full synthetic (and I would also recommend a 30 weight but that is somewhat controversial it seems) and slow down. If you run past 250 for too long, dump the oil as soon as you can regardless of what the little monitor says as it's not all that smart.