EcoDiesel, A Maiden Voyage

[Spur]

I agree...really appreciate all the info. It's been invaluable to me as I decide which truck to buy.

 

[jawzs2]

We also put more stuff on the trailer before we left Republic. I'm now towing a Dump Trailer carrying a potato harvester/planter, cattle guard, four 4 Wheeler tires, and wood stove + several smaller assorted items putting me not only over my Axle Weight, but over my Combined Weight rating as well.

You should asked the Discovery channel to film that for one of their reality shows! Just kidding.

Glad you made it safe and sound, quite entertaining to follow your journey, thank you for the updates, sounds like this might be my next truck also

 

[DanielDoo27]

Glad you made it home safe and sound. Great journey!

 

[WalterG]

Wish I had seen this thread about two weeks ago. I live in Idaho, about 2 hours from the park, and it would have been cool to have driven up to meet you and see the truck. Oh well.

Great to see the journey and glad that it went well for you.

Enjoy the new truck!

 

[Cruizer]

Congrats on the successful journey and great memories. Great pics, thanks for sharing with us.

 

[P90XKirk]

Glad you are home safe! Thanks again for taking us along for the ride!
All the Best!

 

[Mr.Asmith9]

Monday and Tuesday at the Edmonton mall was cool but not what we where expecting. The amusement park was a joke, but the water park was really cool and that made up for it. My friend and I spent more time in the Casino then anywhere else. No we didn't win big. I was down a total of 12 dollars by the time we left and he was up some 40 or 50. There was a lot stores but we didn't buy anything. Nothing was all to exciting. I'm from a small town in Alaska that has a stripmall with maybe 20 stores? Only 780 less then the West Edmonton Mall is supposed to have but it didn't feel like there was that many stores there. By the time we left we both agreed that we should of just skipped going there and stayed an extra 2 or 3 days in Republic with his friends and family. Well, now we know.

Wednesday morning, 9am we hit the road. Supposedly we have 1,825 miles to go before I drop my friend off in Fairbanks, then another 80ish before I get home. We made a quick stop at Walmart for some food for the road. We wanted some premade sandwiches, which this Walmart didn't carry...? So instead we bought meat, cheese, bread, sauce, and some other snacks like Sunflower seeds, mints, and poptarts.

I'm still impressed with how easy it is to forget that I'm hauling a trailer. Now that I had an alt for driving I was able to spend more time poking around with some of my truck features like my stereo. Yelp was convenient for finding fuel stations, Sirius XM was convenient for finding fuel prices little stuff like that. I took the first driving shift Nothing special happened, didn't see anything really cool or picture worthy. At about 4 o clock I pass the rains off to my friend, I wasn't really tired but I didn't want to wear myself out to soon. He drove until night fall and I took back over. I drove all through the night until the sun came back up. I tell you what, It was one long night. More fury critters hiding around every corner. At one point there was a moose in the middle of the road. But when we saw it, it didn't look like a moose. It was standing at the exact angle in which we could only see its head, front shoulders and front legs. From the distance we spotted it we had no Idea what it was. At first we thought it was a person in the middle of the road. Then when we where a little closer we knew it wasn't that. For a split second before I recognized it I though it could of been an alien... Bare with me here... At the angle I mentioned above and how far we where away from it head looked just like a gray alien off the scifi channel. A split second after that I knew it was a moose, but it looked like it was cut in a third and standing in the road missing everything from the shoulders back just standing there staring at me... That scared me more then the thought of an alien. Then we where about 25 yards away from it and I could fully see the entire moose and it got out of the road. I feel the need to tell you that I was tired, and had been driving for well over 14 hours in total so far, not including when my friend was driving. So it's save to say I was mentally exhausted and not thinking clearly. Not long after and just before dawn I pull wake my friend and we switch. At this point I've been awake for over 24 hours and I learned something. I cant sleep in the passenger seat of my truck no matter how tired I am. I just can't get comfortable. My friend can lean back and pass right out. Me on the other hand I just lay there. I got maybe an hour to two hours of sleep and the rest of the time I spent awake trying to sleep. I take 2 more shifts driving. On the first we where about 100 miles outside the AK border when we saw two grizzly bears. Mama and her cub. I got pictures and will upload here soon. Coming into the US was stupidly easy. We pull up to the crossing. The guy looks at our passports tells my friend he needs to sign his, says welcome home, and walks away. Awesome!!! But we where left a little puzzled. He didn't say we could carry on, but he didn't say to wait either. So very slowly we pulled forward. When we weren't chased down, we figured out it was okay.

When we got to Fairbanks, we had lunch with my family, Dropped my friend off, unloaded his stuff from the trailer and I headed home. I didn't get home until about 1130 and I was dog tired. I pulled up to the house, parked, went to the bathroom and went strait to bed. I awoke about 12 hours later haha.

Stats from Edmonton To Anderson
1923.8 Miles
13.9 aMPG
53 aMPH
Elapse Time of 35 hours and 55 minuets

Total Trip stats
4790.5 Miles
13.9 aMPG
49 aMPH
Elapse Time of 96 hours and 36 minuets.

As you can see the aMPG from both stats are the same. I don't think the EVIC calculates the MPG based off the start of your trip setting like it suggests. I think it only takes last thousand miles or so and averages it out unless you reset the Trip. I'll have to do some research to figure it out. You'll also notice Fuelly right now says 14.5 MPG. So now either my EVIC is lying or Fuelly is. So I added up all my fill ups, over the mileage per my last fill up and here is what I got

334.438 Gallons purchased
4712.5 Miles driven (From when I picked it up to my last fill up in Fairbanks)
13.94 Average Miles per Gallon.
I also spent $1,510 Dollars in fuel during my little trip. (That's an average of 4.515 Per gallon, you can blame Canada, Before I hit Canada I didn't stop at a gas station unless the diesel was under 3.999 per gallon.)

Apparently, my EVIC is just about spot on, and I have no Idea why Fuelly is off. If I get really bored I'll go double check that I inputted the information from the receipts correctly.

I have noticed that I've spent more time talking about the trip in all my posts then my truck, its features/performance and what not. So I'm going to do two things. First, over the next few day's I'll try to wright a personal 360 review on my truck using all my road experience. Secondly, I'll keep y'all updated on how it handles without a load, what Kind of millage I'm now going to get as I turn it into my daily driver and not my work horse.

I'll either upload some of the other more interesting pictures I haven't yet shared from my cellphone using Tapatalk or upload them from my PC when I transfer them over.

Thanks everyone for following along and like I said stay tuned for more info!

 

[Spur]

Awesome!

 

[Statcher1]

Congrats on making it home safely. And 13.9mpg. Ain't nothing to laugh at hauling a load for that distance


Sent from the Rocket in my Pocket

 

[Esgordon123]

Congrats on making it home safely. And 13.9mpg. Ain't nothing to laugh at hauling a load for that distance


Sent from the Rocket in my Pocket

Up some pretty steep grades to.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Mr.Asmith9]

Some more pictures like I promised. Still working on the detailed review, and I haven't driven my truck sense I got home so no news on anything else.

 

[Mr.Asmith9]

Part 1​

Sorry for the long wait and please bare with me here guys, I'm no professional review writer, nor is grammar, spelling and word choice by any means the best, so that being said;

My first hand take on my 2014 Ram 1500 Laramie Longhorn 3.0L V6 EcoDiesel

As it is I've spent over 100 hours driving my truck in just under a two week span. From day one when I picked up my new truck I knew just about everything there was to know about her features. I spent several months waiting on her to be built, shipped, and prepped for pickup in the meantime I read the owners manual a few times, and the UCONNECT manual once. I'll admit I didn't retain all the information so there are a few things that still surprised me.

My first thoughts on this truck where how beautiful it was. The curvature of the sides, the aggressive front end, the projector headlights, LED Taillights, the hump of the hood, the waffle grill I mean the whole truck is just stunning. Of course, every one finds different things to be beautiful and there for I wont spend to long on the looks.

If I thought the outside looked nice, the inside just topped it all off. As you know I got the Longhorn edition so I had to cut off my lefty to pay for the upgrade. I tell you what those laser etched seats, the cattle brown leather, all the real wood trim, the additional etching in the EVIC panel. Made every penny worth it.

One of the options I chose was the proximity entry and push button (keyless) start. No longer must I reach into my pocket to unlock the doors, or start the engine. I figured when I chose this option I'd still unlock the vehicle with the keyfob. But no need. When you first walk up and put your hand on the door it takes less then a second for it to register and send the unlock code. Its not as fast as the door already being unlocked but it is fast enough that you quickly get use to the slight hesitation before pulling the door open. My only complaint with this feature is every time you put your hand on the lever it send the unlock code... If your getting in and out of your truck a lot unloading or moving stuff around you’ll hear it try to unlock and your lights will flash. Not a big deal, but slightly annoying.

After I climbed inside, adjusted my seat, mirrors, steering wheel, and pedals I fired her up. This was the first time using the bush button start. As most of you know you must place your foot on the brake and hit the button in order for it to start. When I elected this option I didn't take into consideration that Diesel engines use glow plugs, not spark plugs and not being able to leave it in accessory for a moment before starting would make starting the vehicle a challenge. Luckily RAM covered that. After I hit the button the EVIC turned on, and I saw the glow plug light illuminate, a few seconds later it fired up. Note, when the vehicle is warm it starts immediately no hesitation.

Not everyone is fond of the way Diesels sound, but I am. When it started it gave off a nice Diesel purr. Not loud by any means but enough that you can just hear it in the cab. The EVIC loads pretty quickly and so does the uconnect. There are several really cool features inside the EVIC. Digital Temperature gauges for your Oil, Coolant, and Transmission. Seeing as the instrument panel doesn't have all the standard gauges one is accustom to, you can program and or view more traditional ones like the battery voltage, trailer gain and so on.

The rotary shifter with the 8 Speed tranny takes some time to get use to. I went to throw her into drive and missed the shift level several times before I look down to find it and remember with a slight groan, Its a ***. Annoyed I turned it to drive and it actually felt pretty solid. Its not some dinky little dial. Just be careful you don’t accidentally grab it and try to turn it down like its the radio. No, I didn't do this but I came close. I can see RAMs point about not taking up any space when the tranny doesn't use traditional links to shift and now that I'm home. It doesn't bother me anymore. It also seems to be the thing all my friends won't shut up about. They constantly rag on me for not having a shifter. But I guess when you have a truck this nice that outshines most common rigs, they've got to have something to bad talk.

Most diesels have a bit of turbo lag, but seeing as this is my first diesel I can't say whether or not its absolutely horrible or extremely quick to respond. I do know that as soon as the turbo kicks in, you'll find yourself down the road. I haven't done a 0-60 test yet, but when I do I'll update this. There is enough power here to burn my tires, yeah most vehicles can do that. But can you do it with over 4,000 pounds on your rear tires? On more then one occasion when I'd leave a gas station pulling my trailer I'd give her some gas to get up to speed and if I wasn’t gentle on the throttle, my tires would squeal.

There was only one time I wished for more power while hauling my trailer. I was going 65mph driving directly into the wind being battered by gusts of up to 55mph (as per the warning signs posted on the interstate roads) I got stuck behind a semi on a long stretch of one lane traffic. There where a handful of chances to pass the semi however with the trailer, wind, and going up hill I couldn't go any faster then 71mph. Granted not a lot of vehicles would of done much better but I was stuck behind him for a good half hour or so

A setback to the diesel option is some of the additional emission requirements. As most of you know all vehicles have a Exhaust Gas Recirculation System (EGR), well on top of that diesel engines also require a Diesel Particulate Filter (DPF) . If that wasn’t bad enough all diesel engines post 2009 also require Diesel Exhaust Fluid (DEF). The DEF is composed of 32.5% urea and 67.5% de-ionized water. When this fluid is sprayed into the exhaust it reduces the amount of nitrogen oxides emitted into the air. Now that you know what DEF is, the owners manual says the 8 gallon DEF tank will last you up to 10,000 miles or between oil changes. This may be true under normal working loads, no trailer, no payload. But in the first 5000 miles I have driven in the vehicle I have gone through 7 gallons of DEF. At 8 dollars a gallon, It quickly eats up a little more of the difference in fuel economy you though you were saving with this engine. Not to mention when the DPF is full and your vehicle kicks into regen mode to clean it out sucking up 5mpg or more.

 

[Mr.Asmith9]

Part 2​

The little EcoDiesel and 8-Speed TorqueFlite Auto Trans work very well together, however when your in tow/haul and concerned about getting as much mpg as possible you need to listen to your engine, and watch what gear your in. On the steering wheel you have Gear + and – buttons. Unfortunately, this is less of a command and more of a suggestion. Unlike the standard vehicle with manual gear controls where you tell it to go up a gear, it up shifts and vice versa. These controls restrict the max gear your transmission will shift into. While in tow/haul pulling a heavy load you will almost never see 8th gear. That in itself isn't that big of an issue. The real issue comes into shift timing. In my opinion the vehicle doesn’t up shift in tow/haul mode quite as fast as I'd like. I'd start going up hill and it would go from 7th to 6th no problem. I'd get to the top, half way down... all the way down... now on level ground... all the while thinking SHIFT DAMIT!!! and finally it would. It does the same thing in lower gears as well. I think 5th is the worst. The engine be at about 3800 rpms in 5th gear chugging along up a slight incline instead of up shifting to 6th gear and hanging out around 3200 rpms. I start to red line at 4500 rpms, so when I hang out close to 4k and I've still got a few gears to go I start to wonder what the hell my rigs doing. Over the trip home I've learned to listen to the engine and when it starts revving up I'll look down check to see what gear I'm in and what rpms I'm at. More often then not I'd just let off the gas for a brief moment, let her shift, and get back on her.
The most important thing I noticed about the Transmission is it seems to use the vehicles power to your advantage, thus resulting in those high rpms I mentioned just moments ago. I achieve peak torque (420) at 2,000 rpms and peak horsepower (240) at 3,600 rpms. When pulling a load up hill you need the horse power, not the torque, this is why she liked to hang out in those high rpm areas, even though I didn’t like it. Once I realized why it wasn’t so bad, but still when I got over the hill I wanted her to downshift faster. Having 8 different gears to run through I noticed she's pretty good about manipulating the transmission to stay in the power regen for whatever your doing. Low speed torque to highway driving its got you covered. Outside of tow/haul mode she seems shift at a more reasonable rate. One would expect this, after all tow/haul is meant to reduce the amount of shifts your vehicle does to help prevent additional wear on the transmission.

The suspension has nothing to do with the Diesel option but I was a little worried about getting the Air Ride 4-Corner Air Suspension w/ auto-leveling. My two concerns were winter, and overloading the truck bed. As far as winter is concerned before I purchased I called all my local, and not so local dealerships that get severely cold. There service departments didn't have much to report as far as mid winter repairs related to the air ride. Only time will tell if the -50's of central Alaska will prove there words true. Now I did have more then the “1009 Pound Max Payload” as a matter of fact I had a total of 1854 pounds total payload including occupants, accessories, and tongue weight. With that weight in mind the vehicle auto leveled without issue. I was concerned about tripping the sensors and possibly voiding warranties if I over loaded the vehicle. When I hooked up the trailer for the last time before towing it and my friend home, as it was at its heaviest state, my truck didn't hesitate to compensate for the weight. I'm not sure if I would experience the same positive results in the winter. I can say, outside of the auto leveling feature, just being able to manipulate the ride height is entertaining to say the least. I swear every parking lot I put her into off road 2 and just watch all the stares from people as I crawl by.

Hill start assist is also not vehicle specific but it did come in handy a few times while leaving some parking lots and driveways. However, it also has its setbacks. The hill start assist works constantly whether you have a trailer attached or not. So when you are backing up to say hook up a trailer it can be a little annoying. Give it a little gas, nothing, just a hair more, and then you jump backwords resulting in quickly applying the brakes... and repeating this process a time or two until you figure out whats going on.
The Navigation also worked wonders even if the gal talks a little to much. However I am experiencing an issue with mine. It doesn't like to route across borders to such an effect that it actually malfunctioned twice on my trip and I had to do a soft reset of the entire stereo system. Now that I'm home it doesn’t bother me seeing as I'm not planning any road trips.

I can't really compare the performance to other trucks because I haven’t spent enough time driving comparable models. The little I have noticed is when I look back and think about my family's rigs. I have driven my mothers 08 RAM 1500 (3rd Gen) with the 5.7 Hemi. I don't think it handles as nicely with the spring suspension and hydraulic power steering vs the new electric. I have also towed a few things with my Dad's 07 RAN 2500 (3rd gen) with the 5.7 Hemi. Without doubt I have a smoother ride but that's to be expected seeing as his has leaf springs. However I feel as though my engine performs better at hauling a load. Even though he has a far superior payload and tow rating the trailer I hauled with my truck seemed to make a noticeable performance difference on his engine, verses mine. The 2500 has a harder time getting up to speed and staying there. I haven’t tested this thoroughly it just seems that way from the little I've done.

The only other things I can really think about are optional features that most of you have, or already know about. If I can come up with any more good information to share with you guys as time goes by I will post it on here. Please, post any questions you have and I'll do my best to answer them.

 

[P90XKirk]

Thank you again for writing up your thoughts! Makes me really excited to get mine !

 

[B-g-K]

How often were you seeing active regens? If the engine was being worked and being driven at highway speed generally you will get enough passive regen that you won't see if very often, at least with cummins.

 

[toofart]

Great write-up. I found the transmission had "learned" a lot after a couple of towing trips.

 

[Knighthawk]

Wow

Oh, wow. What was awesome. More than I ever planned to learn. I want one now. I have the '13 5.7L Hemi 4x4 Sport trim package. Wish I had known about this engine option when I bought mine I would have waited a year for the new rig. I love my truck like a member of my own family but I wish it had the Ecodiesel to save some money at the pump. Thanks again for the review, it was awesome.

 

[Mr.Asmith9]

I wish it had the Ecodiesel to save some money at the pump. Thanks again for the review, it was awesome.

Knighthawk, It doesn't really make you feel like your saving at the pump. When you fill up the 26 gal tank with diesel the charge can easily top 100 dollars. When your paying you have to remind yourself how far you went between fillups, not how much it costs. Also the diesel engine isn't offered in the sports model, it also costs an additional $2,850 more then the 5.7 Hemi. When you calculate the engine upgrade, fuel price, DEF fluid, and the difference in oil, it takes quite a long time before you actually start saving money. The saving grace here is diesel engines typically last longer then gasoline engines.

How often were you seeing active regens? If the engine was being worked and being driven at highway speed generally you will get enough passive regen that you won't see it very often, at least with cummins.

B-G-K, I actually haven't seen an active regen yet. I am hoping to never see one. I live about 80 miles from the nearest town with a grocery store so I make the trip often enough that my rig should keep to the passive regens. The only time I can think of seeing one is in the winter, less because of the idling and more because the extreme cold will make it harder for a passive regen.



I just realized something, every time we say DEF Fluid we are actuaily saying "Diesel Exhaust Fluid Fluid" lol that's like saying Chai tea, Chai = tea so your actually saying Tea Tea

 

[Spur]

Please let us know how the def holds up when you're not towing. I'm curious if you get the 10k out of it without the heavy load.

I love the Ecodiesel! Everything I've read has only been positive. Is there anything on the truck that disappoints you? would you buy the little diesel again over a Hemi if you had the chance? I'm just curious if the truck has met your expectations.

Thanks again for helping us all with the purchase of our next truck. The information that you've provided has been invaluable to me as I'm sure it has been for others.

 

[DanielDoo27]

Great information, I appreciate your insight and sharing your experiences with us. Thank you.