Ram 1500 Eco Diesel Review

I like diesel and would like to see how they stack up to the competition.

I have a 94 Ram 3500 with 800,000 miles on it - it was a US truck - and apart from brakes, shocks, tires etc. I haven't had any real problems and I do a lot of miles with my trailer.

A Diesel will definitely be at the top of my list when I replace it.
 
caboose56 said:
Has Car and Driver re done the tests with the Ford using 87 yet?
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We'll wait til they do a road test on the 2015 Ford Transit van/wagon. That one has a 3.5L EcoBoost option as well, and they don't even recommend premium. It calls for regular only. :)

Fearless prediction, the Transit will spank the RamMaster, or whatever the hell they call that front wheel drive piece of crap, and anything from GM.
 
That video doesn't matter. Sunny will find you some conspiracy website that says the ram is a pos and that's like the bible to people like that. Transit is the best thing next to a honda. Who wants to bet this happens? :rolleyes:
 
With the diesel ProMaster, guys are reporting 25ish mpg US normal driving, 30 mpg in ideal conditions (65 mph highway cruise), 22 mpg towing a 3000 lb enclosed trailer.

http://www.promasterforum.com/forum/showpost.php?p=130161&postcount=288

The Transit diesel won't come close. (I'm hearing about the same number empty as the ProMaster does with the trailer in tow.) The new 4 cylinder Sprinter diesel should come close.

I have a gas ProMaster. In the same ideal conditions where the diesel gets 30 mpg, mine is around 21 or 22.

Again, the Transit won't do that ... not even with the base non-turbo gas engine, nevermind the Ecoboost. I don't need the Ecoboost power, the 280-ish hp from the Pentastar does quite fine.

Fiat has been building front-drive vans for 30 years. They have it sorted out.

The low loading floor is something no rear-drive van can match. Ford has front-drive versions of the Transit in Europe, but they did not tool up Kansas City to build them.
 
That video is funny, I have a customer that has a couple of Promaster van's that he bought in the fall and since I have all Sprinters for vans and I was looking to replace 1 I got to talking with him about his experiences with it.

He said they are almost useless in the snow once they are loaded. He used the word frightening. His vans are loaded to capacity or a little over and he told me that he's tried to rearrange things in the back all sorts of ways but still can't enough weight on the front end for decent traction. He still has the factory (Kuhmo?) tires on them and they are pretty poor anyways. A proper set of tires would no doubt help.

As far as fuel economy is concerned with the Transits, Since I was considering one of them I've been on a few Transit forums doing to research. This is what users seem to be reporting for the transit. All MPG numbers are ranges depending on rear end ratio and height and length of the van

3.7L - 11-14mpg
3.5L EB - 12-18mpg
3.2L Diesel - 18-22mpg - limited number of diesel vans on the forums. They seem to be hard to actually get your hands on one.

My '08 Sprinter 3500 V6 Long and Tall loaded to 11k all the time got 18.5 lifetime MPG over 280K
My '10 Sprinter 3500 V6 Long and Tall loaded to 11k full time got 17MPG over 310k - More emissions equipment, higher power rating.

I have my new '15 Sprinter 2500 high roof but short body this time. It has the 4cyl and the 7 speed transmission. I won't have it on the road for a couple more weeks but I expect it to get 22-25MPG based on what others are reporting.
 
The switch-over point where rear drive starts being better off than front drive is with somewhere near 2000 lb in the back. If you are less than that most of the time (or not driving in winter!) front drive will be better. More than that, rear drive will be better. (Most people spend most of the time with less load than that - but obviously not everyone.) Yes, the stock tires (Continental on mine) are awful hockey pucks. Too hard, and they have barely any grooves running crosswise to bite into snow.

Those mileage figures reported for the Transit are pretty awful. In Europe, these vans - all of them - are only available with diesel engines.
 
If it's fuel mileage you are looking for Sprinter is the champ.

The Transit is dominating the market now that Ford brought them here finally. Fleet manager website and forums say that the typical '6-8 weeks' order is not even close. It's more like 4-6 months for delivery.

Ford is selling them faster than they can make em. They recently added a second shift to catch up to demand.

From my research, fleet guys are only eyeing the Sprinter and the Transit as serious contenders. Everything else is a joke....

Sent from my Passport
 
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Actually, it's more like Transit and hardly anything else. M-B has to be really worried, because everyone knows Sprinters rust like mad and can be expensive to maintain. Plenty bought Sprinters because, until lately, there was nothing else in the marketplace like it.

http://www.autoblog.com/2015/01/06/ford-transit-best-selling-us-van/

December 2014 sales
Transit 10,030
Express 5,611 (Who is still buying these? Obviously some fleet buyers are resistant to change)
Ford E-series 5,256 (This will be leftover outgoing models and the heavier-duty versions, which haven't been Transit-ized yet)
Sprinter 3,288
ProMaster 3,036
Savana 1,725 (If you group Express and Savana together it's still not reaching the Transit)
Nissan NV 1,554 (this is the real loser in this group ... I can think of no reason to buy this instead of ANY of the others)

Choice in the market is a good thing. The ProMaster was the best for my needs, so that's what I bought.

edit: ProMaster diesel fuel consumption should be pretty close to Sprinter 2.1 4-cyl diesel consumption. The Sprinter was on my short list, too, but it was way more expensive, and they are seemingly made from compressed rust. Transit wasn't out yet, I don't think it would have changed my mind - thirstier, higher load floor.
 
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Nisssan NV. Long wheelbase, huge hood, hardly any carrying capacity due to it. What was nissan thinking? Might as well buy a Nissan SUV and throw a cab on it.
 
Brian P said:
Actually, it's more like Transit and hardly anything else. M-B has to be really worried, because everyone knows Sprinters rust like mad and can be expensive to maintain. Plenty bought Sprinters because, until lately, there was nothing else in the marketplace like it.
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the updated 2014+ Sprinters (apparently, according to my digging) took many steps to address the rusting issues of the early models. Time will tell. The 2014 we ordered several months ago came with extensive rust proofing applied liberally right from the factory. I have faith in the 2.1L diesel. Not only does it get smoking fuel economy, but its a widely used power train used in the E class (volume seller) and other car models in the line up. Its clearly a tried and true power train, and with so many out there, I'm confident M-B engineered it right.

The fleet guys I talk to aren't balking so much at the "maintenance" costs, its that in many parts of the US, there aren't any M-B dealers for 100 miles and the close ones that are near them, aren't "equipped to work on Sprinters", and when you need parts, they have to wait a week+ for parts to come from Germany. downtime=bad. Not ideal if you are a business with a fleet of trucks.

M-B is bringing out a smaller cheaper version of the Sprinter this summer with the same 2.1 drivetrain. The Metris (V-class everywhere else), I can see this one as a bigger seller and the new fuel mileage champ.

The 'triple threat' build of the ProMaster just scares the bejeezus out of me. Built in Mexico, Chrysler parts, Fiat build quality. 'nuf said.

As for the Transit, the fleet guys are salivating over this because the top line engine 3.5EcoB V6 (while achieving virtually identical power and torque) gets 46% better fuel economy than the premium engine option V10 in the econoline, and 26+% better fuel economy than the V8's. Ask any fleet guy and he will tell you that the E series are bullet proof. We expect no less with the Transit. The 3.5Eco engine has been out since 2011, with 40+% of F150 owners going with this premium engine. I don't need to tell you how many F150s Ford moves in a year, so that equals a hell of a lot of engines! and its a tried, true and reliable power train.

Couple this with the fact that the Transit is around $10grand cheaper than a Sprinter, has cheap and easy accessibility to parts, wide dealer network, and should be built as well as the Econoline, its no surprise sales escalating.

I'll let you know how the Transit is, when ours (finally) arrives in April. :)
 
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The thing that's concerning about the Sprinter rust problem is that they wouldn't necessarily start rusting at the usual water-trap or salt-spray points (the bottoms of doors, rear edges of wheel arches, etc) but often right in the middle of the panels, and that smells like bad paint. That they didn't fix this after the gen 1 Sprinter is what made me nervous. If they claim to have fixed it for 2014, I'll believe it when I see it ... but on someone else's van.

If the 3.5 Ecoboost is a replacement for the V10 gas engine, that should be a huge improvement.

I'm driving the van today because there was a 3 foot snow drift blocking the garage, no way was the car getting out ... No problem getting through the snow.
 
Brian P said:
The thing that's concerning about the Sprinter rust problem is that they wouldn't necessarily start rusting at the usual water-trap or salt-spray points (the bottoms of doors, rear edges of wheel arches, etc) but often right in the middle of the panels, and that smells like bad paint. That they didn't fix this after the gen 1 Sprinter is what made me nervous. If they claim to have fixed it for 2014, I'll believe it when I see it ... but on someone else's van.
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No question, rust was the biggest factor in hesitating to go with a new Sprinter. I'm confident in the quality of the drive train, and mainentance should be fine, but the rust???

for 2014+ sprinters, they now used Galvanized steel for the body panels and this was enough to sway me to order a 2014 model. :)


"Paintwork: emu feathers and ultra-fine coats of paintTen pretreatment stations and an extremely complex painting process provide the body of every van from Düsseldorf wîth perfect protection against corrosion. The pretreatment process is preceded by a so-called bodywasher: at this station the entire body is cleaned on the outside by rotating spray wheels and on the inside by other spraying equipment.

The actual painting process comprises zinc phosphating, cathodic dip priming, filler coat and top coat. All the coats are ultra-fine, wîth a total thickness of 80 thousandths of a millimetre. On average, the paintwork on every Sprinter weighs in at 17.4 kg, and the painted surface area totals around 95 square metres.

Prior to top-coating, each body is cleaned wîth emu feathers on rotating rollers to remove the finest dust. Robots and employees share the task of sealing the body seams averaging a total length of 138 m wîth PVC. The water-based top coat is applied on four lines. Several hundred different colours are possible. The top coat is applied using electrostatic systems – the fine paint particles are attracted to the body by electrostatic means.

Cavity sealing involves the same high degree of precision as the painting process: a large number of nozzles specified for each individual model automatically spray a precisely defined quantity of the protective coating into every cavity on the body. Together wîth the galvanised body panels, the sum total of all corrosion prevention measures provides permanent protection in all areas at risk of corrosion – rust has no chance."
 
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^ Where did you find that? I never saw that when I was van shopping ... and in any case, I'd like to see where the difference is between what they're claiming now and what they claimed for 2013 and prior models. Whatever claims they made for prior model years, it didn't work, and if they're claiming the same now that they did before, it probably still won't work!

I like the M-B 2.1, I just don't trust the body to not dissolve into dust around it.

Still wouldn't have bought one ... $8000 more, and higher load floor (although better than the GM and old Ford vans) ... and I already have one M-B product and I know what the dealers want for looking at it ...
 
Brian P said:
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MUyhKJNejHA&x-yt-cl=85114404&x-yt-ts=1422579428" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">[video=youtube;MUyhKJNejHA]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MUyhKJNejHA&x-yt-cl=85114404&x-yt-ts=1422579428[/video]
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The one on the left might have that thing where when the wheels spin (loss of traction) the motor cuts out on purpose and the brakes are applied. My trucklite has it and if it's designed to make clearing road undulations tricky to impossible, job well done.
 
When you ask Mazda, they have been throwing technical jargon of terms and parameters on anyone who was careful enough and diligent to ask about their sheet metal and paint .... And they still rust. Sometimes it's just better to wait for tge real time usage experience. They all say the right things, not all of them do it ....
 
I've searched long and hard, I can't find any reference to galvanized steel body panels on Sprinters pre 2014.

No tech jargon, galvanized steel is what it is...

Sent from my Passport
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