Instrumented Test
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Tow the moon—or at least a 28,800-pound hunk of it.
When the fracking wildcatters hit the big one on the Car and Driver ranch, we can imagine ambling over to the wellhead in a Cummins-fired Ram 3500 Mega Cab 4×4 dually. And we’re not alone. U.S. automakers make billions of dollars each year selling full-size pickup trucks by the, er, truckload. It’s a fairly unique American phenomenon, having so much heavy-duty rolling stock in so many personal hands that you’d be forgiven for thinking of it as a sacrosanct amendment to the U.S. Constitution. But what’s even more special is the way some brands have complimented that capability by slathering heaping dollops of luxury onto and into their HD rigs.
Take, for instance, our Laramie Longhorn–trimmed Ram test truck. German high-end luxury sedans take notice: The western-themed Longhorn has almost as much leather upholstery and trim as do the livestock the truck is trailering. It displays more six-shooter-style filigree on the dash and doors than Ted Cruz at an NRA open-carry picnic. There are enough seat warmers to keep five large denim-shod butts toasty. Real barbed-wire-scarred fencepost wood trim? The Longhorn’s got it, and short of actual Longhorn horns splayed across the grille (not a Ram option—as of now) it’s inexplicably appropriate here. Yet the big Ram is also tech-savvy, having Chrysler’s latest Uconnect 8.4-inch touch-screen navigation, voice-command, Bluetooth, and mobile Wi-Fi hotspot capabilities.
Dually My Mega
The Mega Cab is just that—mega by means of an expansive four-door Crew Cab that’s been stretched a few inches to add a 1×6-foot storage area behind the now-reclinable rear seats. The downside is the Mega Cab can’t be configured with the eight-foot cargo bed, just the “short” six-foot, four-inch one. But spanning nearly 21 feet nose to hitch, the Mega Cab is probably already long enough. Wide enough, too, as dually versions like our test truck fill a traffic lane with few inches to spare.
Our test truck was equipped with the $7795 Cummins inline-six turbo diesel. Ram offers three versions of this engine: a 350-hp, 660-lb-ft unit with a class-exclusive six-speed manual transmission, a 370-hp iteration with 800 lb-ft of grunt and the Chrysler-built six-speed automatic, and the one in our truck, a bragging-rights 385-hp, 850-lb-ft version hooked to a heavy-duty Aisin-built wide-ratio six-speed auto. All of the Cummins mills now employ urea injection to reduce nitrogen-oxide emissions and feature a diesel-exhaust-fluid (DEF) gauge across from the regular fuel gauge to keep tabs on the precious liquid. The truck will give numerous reminders before reaching empty, but run out of DEF and the Ram won’t run.
Sure, the Ford and GM HD pickups have their big diesels too, but there’s something so right about the purr of the six oilpots in the medium-duty semi-truck Cummins. The 850 lb-ft torque output claim currently puts the Cummins-powered Ram on top in the full-size truck wars. The big, 6.7-liter six spools up quickly with little turbo lag and gets to the fat part of the torque curve in a hurry. The Mega Cab dually’s 8.9-second 0–60 sprint might not sound like fast company, but believe us when we say that when the Cummins is on full boil, you feel that something substantial has been set in motion.
Specifications
VEHICLE TYPE: front-engine, rear- or 4-wheel-drive, 2–5 passenger, 4-door truck
PRICE AS TESTED: $70,285 (base price: $53,790)
ENGINE TYPE: turbocharged and intercooled pushrod 24-valve diesel inline-6, iron block and head, direct injection
Displacement: 408 cu in, 6690 cc
Power: 385 hp @ 2800 rpm
Torque: 850 lb-ft @ 1600 rpm
TRANSMISSION: 6-speed automatic
DIMENSIONS:
Wheelbase: 160.0 in
Length: 248.4 in
Width: 79.1 in Height: 78.3 in
Curb weight: 8960 lb
C/D TEST RESULTS:
Zero to 60 mph: 8.9 sec
Zero to 100 mph: 26.7 sec
Rolling start, 5–60 mph: 10.1 sec
Top gear, 30–50 mph: 4.8 sec
Top gear, 50–70 mph: 6.8 sec
Standing ¼-mile: 16.8 sec @ 83 mph
Top speed (governor limted): 102 mph
Braking, 70–0 mph: 208 ft
FUEL ECONOMY:
EPA city/highway: Not rated
C/D observed: 13 mpg
Continued…