This article is brought to you by Grandeur, warranty your number one online source for factory-backed, extended warranties in the country. Oh yeah, you and I have waited long enough that right there is the brand new 2025 Ram heavy duty on ton duy with a brand new cumin turbo diesel and a new 8-speed automatic, and it’s finally time to see how it toes right here in Arizona,and there’s another big reason why case and I are so excited to run this particular video – it’s because we get to pull this heavy trailer with the brand new comments on the Davis Dam grade. Why is this so important and interesting? Well, it’s because the standard by which every pickup truck is rated at for towing is the Davis Dam grade. It’S 11.

1 12 mil long. It’S pretty steep we’re going to find everything about the grade the test and the new engine and how it pulls this gigantic. 19,000 lb trailer, so, okay, this is interesting when the toal mode is disabled, it starts you in second gear right and when it’s enabled it throws you down in first well, it makes sense, and it’s going to be helpful when we’re hooked up to almost 20,000 lb. It is, it is helpful um, especially when you we’re climbing the Davis damn yeah. This is maybe the most iconic Towing route other than the ey Gauntlet.

Of course, oh, the ey Gauntlet is premium. I mean prestigious world’s toughest, so the igon is 8 mil long. The Davis Dam Union pass is 112 mil long yeah and that’s part of the reason that every manufacturer uses it as part of the j2807 SAE tow rating that all these trucks come from the factory with. Although it’s interesting, some of the folks at Ram, some of the engineers were telling us that they do use our right Gauntlet as well, all right, dude, we’re doing this. We are making the turn at the light exactly, and this turn puts us right onto what we know as Davis Dam.

So this is going to be about a 5 % grade 5 or 6 % grade a little bit of variance in the exact pitch for, like you said, 11 mil yeah, and just imagine I mean this is March early March, but imagine the height of July or August, where this is heat soaked with like 110 120 Fahrenheit, exactly because when they do the testing that they have to do to get the j2807 rating for these trucks, it has to be at least 100 on the ike. When we launch we’re basically Full Throttle almost right away, yeah for the entirety of the Run, uh using heavy duty trucks, but here we do have a traffic light. Yeah we’ve got a traffic like the other. Funny thing is that Davis Dam is nearby, but it’s right here, it’s over there, so yeah we’re not actually on Davis Dam. You just near it really almost the better name for this test.

This grade that they do would be Union pass. Cuz! That’S what we’re going to Crest as we get to the top, but still definitely a challenging test, because it is a pretty consistent grade and as we get a little higher up too, we’ve got some Corners back and forth where we can talk about how this truck Handles the trailer behind it exactly I just passed the semi TR. There was no problem. This dually has a sport package, which means the grill, even though it has a chrome insert, is painted body collar as well as the bumper.
It does have this hood scoop, but it’s nonfunctional, but here’s the jewel. This is a brand new engine, has a new rating and a lot of new hardware, 430 horsepower at about 2800 RPM and 1 75 lbet of torque at 1,800 RPM and we’ll talk more about the engine on the inside. But another really important point is something you cannot see here. It’S that 8-speed automatic transmission that backs it up. You have more gearing Ram, is switching up the rear axle as well.

The maximum towing configurations have a large 12 in differential and a different ratio for the Diesels. It’S a 3

4221 – and that sounds kind of like a low number, but don’t worry, this is the exact same ratio that GM’s been using for many many years and also because this truck also has a new 8-speed automatic transmission. You have more ratios in the transmission, so this axle should provide maybe a little bit better efficiency than before and also still have a lot of power. One thing that we’re already reaping the benefits of is this new 8-speed transmission yeah, and I set it up right here in the gauge cluster, where I can see the current gear I’m in um. I just had to go into settings.

Um set up screen setup and I could select it so it’s just a couple of levels down in the menu and now I can see it at all times. I reset my trip meter, we’ll see exactly what our efficiency. Well, we don’t have anything to compare against. Necessarily, but we’ll see our efficiency our time our distance and also we can monitor all the temperatures as well. Exactly so, we’ve got a really good gate set on this truck.

This is where you can set up tire pressure on your trailer. We’Ve also got transmission temp. We can see what the trailer brake and the gain and everything is doing so how much of the trailer braking you’re using scrolling down. You have coolant. Temp we’ve got boost pressure, we’ve got oil, temp oil pressure, we’ve got our battery voltage and then we can also see on our way down how much our exhaust brake is doing.

The other cool thing is that you can even go into these and you can see a graph over the last 120 seconds, so the last two minutes what these different parameters have been doing. So we can see our coolant. Temp has been nice and steady. Our trans temp has been nice and steady 165, we’ll see if it gains much or picks up much from there now every RAM for 2025. When you get the diesel option, you get the same common engine in the 2500 trucks, the 3500 trucks right you’re.

Getting the same high output engine cuz before that, wasn’t the case yeah exactly so. There was a high output and there was a standard output. Now it’s just the one 430 horsepower, which is a little behind some of the other diesels in the segments. What the Chevy is 470, yes, the standard output Ford is 475 and then the high output Ford be 500. 500.
Yes, so we’re on the low end here as far as horsepower, but we’re on the upper end with this powertrain as far as torque and when you’ve got a trailer linked up behind you. Torque is really going to be the headline figure that we’re interested in. Not that horsepower doesn’t matter yeah I mean torque allows you to get moving and kind of allows the engine to come up to its optimal operating range, so that’s kind of where the torque is most important, but once you’re at that optimal range, which right now we’re At about 2500 rpm and the maximum horsepower this engine makes at around 2800 RPM. So we want to be in that sweet spot right, and I think this transmission also allows us to do that when you’re buying a pickup truck like this. It’S a huge investment and you want to protect.

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om and protect your powertrain, your electronics, a new vehicle for a long period of time when you’re pulling any trailer. It’S really important that safety is top of mind and we’re pulling very, very heavy. I do have a commercial driver’s license CDL and we’re in the CDL territory, with this capability of this dually truck and, of course, that trailer, so I’m doing a little bit of a pre-trip inspection, so the pucks are okay. The chains are connected. This is locked all right now.

Let me look at um how that tractor is tied down, so Ram chose this trailer, the load and they prepared everything and wow. You could play music in these chains and this is a duly um double tandem axle, and these tires are probably at somewhere between 80 to 100, maybe 120 PSI depending on the load and the new Ram truck also has tire pressure monitoring system for the truck, and You can also set it up for the trailer as well. Efficiency is really key, because that’s your bottom line right. How often do you have to refuel? How much def are you using right?

All those elements add to the cost of running a truck like this yeah and this 342 axle ratio and the presence of this 8speed as far as fuel economy is concerned. Is it should make these new cuming trucks much better? We’Ll really have to wait until we get these out to Colorado, so we can do our MPG Loop and compare it to what we’ve seen in the past and what we see with other competitive trucks. But this 8-speed definitely an improvement in the quality of how this drives and how this pulls a trailer having more gear ratios to choose from should also help with fuel economy, yeah and right now we a lot of the times at the I Gauntlet um in the Heavy duty segment when we test those trucks, like we’ve, been doing last what 13 years I don’t. We don’t use cruise control right now.

I am using it and it’s actually picking up this motorcyclist case. Do you want to show that so there’s a motorcyclist ahead of me uh the system, the radar system did pick it up and it says there’s a vehicle in front of me and I have enough power to wear in six gear. I can maintain basically 65 M an hour up this Tail as if we wasn’t, we weren’t, even Towing, yeah right yeah, again, no, no issue cuz we’re well within the range that this truck is rated to pull. So it’s not a problem there and it seems like as we head uphill. The truck is also doing a good job of handling the weight behind it.
As far as steering and as far as suspension, Comfort doesn’t feel like we’re anywhere, of course, near the bump stops uh. What’S the payload on this truck was over 5,000 yeah. I think we saw it at 5400. Lb yeah um and you have to be mindful of this. Um payload is very important, so every pound of it matters because a trailer like this, the goose snack that goes in the middle of your bed right um and connects that ball in the center of the bed.

Um. That could push on the truck with as much as 15 to 20 % of the trailer weight yeah versus the 10 % that we expect from the typical bumper pole exactly so, let’s calculate that really quick, so 19,000 lb Ram told us is the weight of this Trailer yeah so, let’s say 15 % of that, so 10 % is 1900 lb plus about 800. So that’s about 2700 lb, potentially of tongue load yeah off of this trailer and we’re nowhere near the maximum right yeah, with over 5,000 lb of payload we’re well within the margins there as well. So you – and I are like like do little ants really crawling around this truck, like feathers on top of this suspension truck, has no idea exactly so that’s why like, if you are pulling heavy like, for example, if you are pulling a large fif wheel, camper or A goose neck trailer like this frequently I would recommend a dual yeah, because that gets you. You know above 4,000 lb of payload.

That’S when you have that capability and stability too, because it’s a wider rear axle. Really I mean overall, with all the tires now there are a couple things, though, that we want point out that would be nice improvements on these one of yeah. I’M not sure that it’s necessarily a big critique, but one of the things that can become an annoyance is that when you key cycle the truck shut it down open up the door get out, and then you get back in you fire it back up. Typically, your tow hul mode does not stay on, even though the truck should know it is still plugged into the trailer. So you would think that it would stay in the mode.

You’Ve left it in right. That kind of bugs me because um this can happen anywhere. Like let’s say you have to make a bit stop and a Truck Stop or a rest area. You’Re jumping out, you know you’re kind of in a hurry, you’re getting back in the truck you’re trying to get going again and then, when you start it up, the too mode may be disabled. You know, that’s that’s a weird thing.

Maybe there should be some sort of a question and actually we could show that um RAM does say you know, are you to which type of trailer are you towing, so it kind of reminds the driver um to kind of reset some of these settings yeah, but It would be nice if it stayed in the mode that you it in wait a minute, and here we are at the top of Union pass. So this is the top of this Towing test uh yeah over 3,500 ft. So we pick up about 3,000 ft of elevation once you get to the top yeah and it’s a beautiful view from this top of Union pass this road, it’s pretty spectacular, that was about um almost 12 miles, 3.5 uh MPG. According to the truck, it took us around 12 minutes, so that was because the initial section was a slower speed right.
There was a traffic light there, so it wasn’t like it’s a highway, the entire time, but dude. We stayed at the speed limit consistently without breaking the sweat yeah no trouble at all. So now we’ll get turned around. We can go back downhill, we can see how the downhill performs is, while the chassis and the suspension on this new Ram did not change much. It still has very impressive specifications: upwards of 5,500 lb of payload and upwards of 33,5 180 lb of towing with a 4×4 crew cap truck like this.

Those are humongous numbers and we’re not coming close to them right now, but nonetheless, let’s take a look at some of the tech. So, first of all, I want to check out the towing and trailer pages right here and look at the trailer. Let’S see how it’s set up, it looks like the tire pressure monitoring system is not particularly still up for this one. Let’S look at cameras. This truck is equipped with a full 360 view.

Braking Light Electric. No, that’s not going to work uh. We need heavy electric. Now trailer name, it’s equipment, trailer, let’s call it that I wish I could make a custom name for this. Of course we have towle mode and exhaust brake.

There’S two settings on and automatic mode. I think I’ll be using automatic mode uh for our run. I love all the gauges inside a ram heavy duty truck and the new truck does not disappoint. It has so much going on. First of all, my trailer brake gain.

I can kind of see and test it right here, my transmission Tamp, and then we have more gauges. These new trucks have a new electrical architecture and new switches for the windows, that’s nice, but also for your towing mirrors, and I love this. I think this is the best execution of any pickup truck. For example. I can power extend them, I can control the lower convex mirror.

I have lights forward and backward. I could fold them. How sweet is that so here again we’re at the top there’s a safety pull out where uh truckers can check their brakes check their temperatures make sure everything is proper um, but there’s a 50 mph truck specific speed limit and there’s a 65 for passenger cars and, As we go on the downhill, tell me about how you have the truck configured. Are you using still cruise control? So I I wanted to try without cruise control at the beginning, and I set the exhaust brake to Auto so there’s two mods on the exhaust brake full on, so it’ll try to use maximum capacity of the exhaust brake and it’s basically it’s it’s a variable geometry.
Turo charger, where you can open up or kind of partially close, so it can create some back pressure uh for the engine Ram measures it in Horsepower. Are you using the brakes any? No? So I set my speed with one brake application at the very top and actually there’s a enough of a downhill where the truck is trying to remember what I told it to. I told it about 50 right yeah, I’m not using cruise control.

I just used my brake once and it seems like it’s memor, it’s memorized it. Let me see if I can bring it to, 50 yeah, so even just a light tap of the brakes there and it downshifted pretty aggressively, and it’s ready it’s ready to help me. So this is a well programmed transmission from what we can see, because it’s very responsive, very quick to do some grade shifting. Of course, the exhaust break on these trucks is really one of the highlights of them, because I would say here in the cumins – and this is true going back other Generations, but still true with this new updated 67 Comins. This exhaust break is probably the best in the business yeah.

I would agree because you could also hear it um, not that you know we want to. You know, hear loud noises constantly, but but but yeah, but it’s also feedback right. The truck is letting you know, you know what, even if you didn’t have the gauge yeah the exhaust brake is on. You can kind of hear that gentle sound. It’S not like a jake brake On A semi- TRU.

It’S not incredibly that yeah, which you can hear from Miles and Miles Away. Um, it’s a little bit quieter, but it still gives you the feedback, and the security and kind of lets me know that the truck is working properly yeah but i’ I’d say as far as how effectively the exhaust brake slows, the truck down slows the truck and Trailer down everything whether you’re on Laden or Towing, like we are now it works the best in the comments of all three yeah and uh. For example, Chevrolet only has fullon exhaust brake or full off, they don’t have an automatic setting. Ford does have an automatic setting like this in the Superduty diesel, uh Power, Stroke, trucks uh, but in both Ford and Chevy, it’s so quiet in there. You almost don’t get that feedback, the exhaust break and it doesn’t seem to slow you down as much as it does in these trucks yeah.

So I think you know both you and I liked comments before yeah the previous. You know the I transmission, the six-speed was pretty good um, the other six-speed transmission. In the 2500s. We owned that truck. Actually, it was okay yeah.

It was fine. It didn’t give us any major issues right, but we had it for about 36,000 Mi yeah, but this 8-speed ZF seems to be initially a much improved unit, at least as far as how it drives longevity. That’S going to be a question we be answered in years, and tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands of miles, but as far as how it drives it’s great and ZF, has a great reputation in making Transmissions. This is nothing new for them. Zf has been making transmissions for a long long time, so they’ve got a a very long history there and they also specialize not just passenger cars and pickup trucks.
They built transmissions for big semi- trucks as well um in Europe and other regions. So so they have a really good reputation and they’ve been with ram also for some time with their Hemi powered trucks. Oh and you – and I actually flew to Germany, to see this transmission before it was confirmed. We we knew and expected that it was going to to end up in these trucks, but this was before it was confirmed. But what ZF was talking about when they were talking through this particular transmission, because they couldn’t specifically say that it was going to go here in the ram they were talking about some some pretty sizable commercial applications for this transmission, as well like garbage trucks, school buses, Semis yeah flat bed, trucks flat bad trucks.

It also has uh one or two PTO, so power takeoff units um, so you could run like a a really heavy hydraulic pump off of it or a air compressor off of it if you wanted to so, if you are configuring, a 2025 Ram heavy duty, they Start with a two-door cab, very basic, two wheel drive configuration with a Hemi gas engine and that’s at about 46,500 bucks um, which is a couple1, maybe more than the previous year. So not a huge change. This cumin diesel is a $ 1,595 option as we’re figuring out right now. It’S uh worthy option. I mean it works really really well, especially if you’re pulling heavy loads up steep grades, which is a lot of what we do in Colorado.

So the  is a worthwhile upgrade for us uh, and this cumins pricing wise is pretty similar to what the old high output used to cost. So it’s definitely not an inexpensive option. Yes, and this truck is how much the one we’re sitting in now. This truck is about $ 86,700, so this one is fairly pricey, it’s a laramy, so it’s a decent trim. It’S not nearly as crazy as you can spec out these trucks.

So we don’t have like the passenger screen here on the dash. We don’t have the biggest screen that you can get, although it’s still a pretty massive screen here in the center. This truck is a pretty good spec. It gives you a lot of the features that you want, but it doesn’t go overboard with all the luxury stuff and it gets you a lot of capability because it is a d dual. It is diesel, it is four-wheel, drive exactly and four-wheel drive.

I think is important even for a dual four-wheel drive only cost about3 ,000 to add. But if you’re like in a dirt lot moving equipment or in a gravel lot and you don’t want to get Bugg down with two drive. And even if you don’t live in a place that gets snow, but if you tellw long distances, you might end up in a place that has snow, so four-wheel drive, definitely a good option exactly and um. I want to hear your take on the Davis Dam Union pass um. I think well, first of all, it’s a beautiful area, really good quality highway.

It’S divided double lane uh, but I don’t think it’s quite as difficult as the ike. Still hey. We’Ve got to stay. True to the ik gauntlet right, the world’s toughest Towing test. Well, here’s the difference um!

Well, maybe if we put another 10,000 lb on the back of this yeah, maybe uh feel we would speed. Uh feel different about it, also if it was 100 yeah. That would also make it feel different, but um. It would at least for this particular test. This grade felt almost relaxing normal, not there’s not a lot of turns the steepness of it can bite at certain areas, but I think the ike is still a top dog and luckily we’re going to have one of the trucks from this event back in Colorado.

In the next couple weeks, so a night Gauntlet, video with the newcom, is coming all right. Well stay tuned for that and we’ll we’ll see you next time. As always, do you guys love car and trucks? Well, I’ve got three great podcast that you will enjoy listening to, because we are deep into cars and trucks and talking about trucks. Right here is my man, Andre and case working on the next episode of talking trucks, where they delve deep into everything that is truckish, including breaking truck news.

Talking about the different models that are coming up and, of course, tearing down the world of trucks, as only Andre and case, know how to do. But if trucks are not your thing and cars are of your thing check out carish our podcast, that is sort of car adjacent with Jen and Mary and Mary being the is part of carish and finally Tommy and myself talk all about cars at tfl’s car chat, Where we look into the newest models, talk about what’s happening in the world of cars, break down the latest news. All three of these podcasts are available. Wherever you get your podcast, so check them out, I think you’ll really enjoy them. Oh