2016 Ram 1500 Sport

[D_Eclipse9916]

dial selector for PRND

I didnt notice this before.  And I gotta say, what the actual fuck?

It’s actually really really nice. Why waste all the console space for a typical shifter?

Ram gear selector, “Rambox”, and Uconnect really impressed me.

RJ, if you want a manual transmission, you can buy a 2016 Ram 3500 Cummins. Smooches.

UConnect is pretty nice so far. I saw one truck with Rambox and it's nice, although you lose interior bed volume. Mine doesn't have it.

Rambox fits a 8x4 sheet of plywood and will fit 99% of what you need, you lose ths pace in front of and behind the humps.  Ill take that for the Ramboxes.

[Jake]

Took the truck on its first little road trip over the weekend with my other half. We ended up meeting Ryan for some beers in Richmond, did a fancy dinner downtown there and drove home on Sunday morning. The seats are comfortable, the sound system is great, and the suspension makes for a very good ride. Hemi V8 is thirsty with the dash claiming (barely) 19 MPG for straight highway driving.

The fact that I can double-click a key fob button and make the truck air itself down for "easy entry" is so pimp.

[.RJ]

The fact that I can double-click a key fob button and make the truck air itself down for "easy entry" is so pimp.

Well, you wouldnt want to spill your PSL getting into the truck 

[Jake]

Mileage: 43,400

I haven't put a ton of miles on the truck since buying it. Between my off-road trip, trip to Germany, and a press loan or two, I've been driving other things or not driving at all. But, I've commuted in it a bit and did use it to tow to VIR a few weeks ago. General fuel economy sucks with the big ol' Hemi, it does have cylinder deactivation (from 8 to 4) and lowers itself to "Aero mode" but the Fords do better on fuel with smaller engines. No matter, I don't drive enough to truly care about MPG and the noises from the Hemi are fantastic. It scoots paired to the 3.92 axles (standard on Sport trim) and the ZF 8-speed.

Towing was very positive. It's kind of weird to hook up the trailer as the air suspension will want to compensate immediately for the tongue weight. What you do is put the truck in "Tire Jack mode" which disables the air suspension's leveling. Hook the trailer up, attach the weight distribution bars, then disable Tire Jack mode and it'll level briefly. When in Tow/Haul mode, it disables automatic highway-speed Aero ride height so it doesn't mess with the trailer.

The air suspension has proven to be very comfortable around town and doubly so when towing. A lot of the expansion joints that would cause the truck and trailer to undulate a bit were very smooth with the Ram/air ride. The transmission has the right amount of ratios to help with strong acceleration, though the downshifting-while-braking is not as aggressive as the Fords. Brakes are generally strong and it stopped fine with the trailer.

I had noticed a quirk with the transmission over the past few weeks. If it sat overnight and fluid got cold (or drained out of wherever it goes), the first shift from Park to Reverse would produce a big thump from the transmission. If I went Park to Drive immediately, no thump. Park to Drive to Reverse, no thump. I chalked it up to weird behavior, alongside a slightly-delayed first 1-2 upshift. The upshift is explained as air being purged from sitting - it doesn't slip, it just revs higher before shifting. Okay, fine. The reverse thump didn't get better so I took it in last week, to Tyson's (Koons) CJDR.

I was a little mislead by the selling dealer in Chantilly. They told me the "full warranty" was for 3 months/3,000 miles and powertrain-only CPO warranty was 7 years/100,000 miles. Turns out, much like with the Kahu GPS tracker (story here) they lied. The 3 month warranty was their own thing, the CPO warranty is actually bumper-to-bumper until 2023 or 100k. Awesome.

Anyway, the dealership said there were no codes stored for the transmission and that I shouldn't worry much about the reverse thump, unless it got more frequent or set a code.

Leaving work yesterday, the truck fumbled a 1-2 upshift really hard. Kind of stuttered a few times and tried to engage 2nd, eventually slammed into 3rd and chimed/lit the CEL. It stayed stuck in 3rd until I came to a red light and power-cycled the vehicle. After that, it had all 8 gears again but shifted differently than "normal." I drove it straight to the dealership, more or less threw the key at my service advisor and he pulled the code immediately. The code is for "incorrect gear ratio" if I'm remembering correctly, which our dear Moparman Jeff says "is the slipping code." We are hoping it's a simple valve body or speed sensor but who knows. 

The transmissions in these are the same ZF 8-speed that is in literally everything now. The trans is beefed up for truck use in a few ways and uses Ram's programming - every brand runs their own software. But, they are known for being very solid. So I'm hoping it's something small. My service advisor is an old BMW nerd so we get along well - he is building a LS1/T56 E38 7-series and was really into my M3 as well. 

Dane said he's having the shop foreman look at the truck this morning, so I should know more later today. He was pleased that a code was set as it gives their team something to start with, diagnosis-wise. Fingers crossed but very glad to have this warranty now.

[Senor_Taylor]

Can't catch a break, huh?

[ScottyB]

wouldn't be a proper Mopar Halloween without lighting up the spooky CEL light.

sorry to hear, but sounds like you've got a good serivce guy on your side which is half the battle with these things. automatics have too much voodoo and witchcraft involved for me to begin to question what it could be, so fingers crossed its just a sensor being bitchy.

[Jake]

Update: Ram is getting a new valve body. They actually had the part in stock and should be able to install it this afternoon, so I can take my own truck to Summit Point tomorrow. Given what's involved in replacing the valve body, I'll have a new one alongside fresh fluid and filter so... yay?

I'm rolling around in a Wrangler Sport S four-door. Briefly contemplated removing the front doors, as Jeep provides you the tools to do it in the glovebox. It's one big wiring connector and two T50 Torx bolts per door. May still do it tonight if it doesn't rain much. These Jeeps are awful as actual cars (compared to anything else that costs what they do, the one I'm driving MSRPs around $41k) but if you remove the roof panels, roll the windows down, and blast Wham! or Aqua then the appeal just skyrockets.



Nobody has died from a freak gasoline fight accident. Yet.

[ScottyB]

These Jeeps are awful as actual cars

its genuinely amazing.  i can't imagine how bad other brands wish they could get away with what jeeps can based on nothing more than brand loyalty and image.  people pay insane $$$ down here to own ones that never, ever leave the pavement.

[JPolen01]

Taking the doors off won’t make it suck any less.

[Jake]

Mileage: 44,100

Took the Ram to Bethany Beach for Thanksgiving and managed to pull a whole 18 MPG out of it with strictly highway driving. The Hemi V8 is great at a lot of things, efficient it is not. The V8 Fords can do low-20s with ease. Not like I really care but an interesting data point.

The transmission still does the "thump" on the first Reverse engagement but has not acted up otherwise with the new valve body/fluid. It seems to downshift more aggressively as I brake for stoplights, or maybe I"m just noticing that more. Whatever. It drives well.

The truck tries to get into a high gear quickly which means you never seem to rev it above 2500 rpm or so. I pinned it mostly-WOT in a merge lane on the way back to DC and surprised myself with how quick it is and how great the sound is at 5k rpm or so.

[JPolen01]

Those hemi engines sound great WOT. Miles per gallon, well whatever.

[Senor_Taylor]

I can not get anything better than 18mpg no matter how hard I try in mine. Even on 6+ hour highway trips.

Sent from my Pixel 3 XL using Tapatalk

[ScottyB]

i don't have much to add, other than man that's a nice shot and that blue looks great.

had a "truck gearbox moment" as well on our Thanksgiving trip. the 4Runner always tries to keep the revs super low, but i had to boot it to merge up a ramp to shoot a gap in between two semis. dropped 2 gears and sent it to redline, and was both excited to hear how good it was and sad i never get to hear that normally.

[D_Eclipse9916]

I can not get anything better than 18mpg no matter how hard I try in mine. Even on 6+ hour highway trips.

Sent from my Pixel 3 XL using Tapatalk

I was amused when The Fast Lane was doing a truck comparo and one of their economy gas mileage comparisons.

Pretty much all of the trucks were worse than EPA but one or two. One of the worst offenders was the RAM Rebel, they state 22mpg, but only because they are on the same line item as a regular ram.  In real world it *almost* hit 18.

Moab, UT to Golden, CO
According to Google maps, we went 339 miles.

• Chevy Trailboss: 19.3 MPG
  
  
• Ford Raptor      : 17.3 MPG
  
  
• Ram Rebel       :  17.9 MPG
  

Then you put a 7k lb trailer on your rig and it really shows a good ole fashioned torquey V8 is better towing (unless #diesel):
https://www.tfltruck.com/2018/06/mpg-cha...ted-specs/

[Jake]

Then you put a 7k lb trailer on your rig and it really shows a good ole fashioned torquey V8 is better towing (unless #diesel):
https://www.tfltruck.com/2018/06/mpg-cha...ted-specs/

If you ignore fuel efficiency, my favorite tow vehicle so far has been the loaner F-150 I had (black XLT) with the 3.5 EcoBoost and 10-speed automatic. Thing was a friggin' freight train at any speed. It got about 3 MPG while boostiboi'ing its way across Afton Mountain but it felt effortless while doing so.

[Jake]

I called a second Chrysler/Jeep/Dodge/Ram dealership (Farrish, in Fairfax) the other day and just asked for a second opinion on the transmission cold-shift concern. Doesn't hurt, right?

The service advisor laughed when I told him the Tysons dealership wanted a CEL code stored before doing any work. I dropped it off last night, they tested it today, and he called at 5 PM informing me that they're throwing a new transmission in it.

I think I got the one ZF8 made on a Friday at 5. Everyone else on the entire internet says this trans is excellent (and it has been, 99% of the time). Hrm.

Anyway, I'll get the truck back later this week. I'm in a Miata RF right now for Out Motorsports so I have wheels. If not, Chrysler would put me in a $0 loaner as part of the CPO warranty program. Hard to complain so far, they're listening to concerns and making them right with little hassle on my end.

[JPolen01]

Good call on the second opinion. Sounds like you may have found a good service department to work with.

[Jake]

Good call on the second opinion. Sounds like you may have found a good service department to work with.

Thanks! Here's hoping, one thing I was cautioned about from fellow owners is "CJDR dealerships universally suck." My friend Meg owns a 2008 Chrysler Town & Country that she purchased new with a lifetime, unlimited years/miles bumper-to-bumper warranty (really) with $0 deductible (double really). She goes to Farrish and recommended both the dealer and service advisor I am working with.

[NTIman]

Yeah, the whole "we need a code" thing is kind of a stupid excuse. There are a multitude of transmission conditions that don't throw a code.

I hope everything goes well. I know the CJDR dealer beside us seems kind of shady/not particularly good, but like any other manufacturer, I'm sure there are great dealers out there.

[Jake]

Yeah, the whole "we need a code" thing is kind of a stupid excuse. There are a multitude of transmission conditions that don't throw a code.

Right!? It's laziness IMO. You're the one in the technician world, but I suspect the majority of people want to plug in the scan tool and replace what it says. Diagnosing something that happens when cold with no code set would require critical thinking, which takes more than the minimum of effort.

Thank you for not being that guy, btw.