Staying a Little Longer - What Do You Want to See? - 2014 Ram 1500 EcoDiesel Long-Term Road Test

Edmunds.com

Staying a Little Longer - What Do You Want to See? - 2014 Ram 1500 EcoDiesel Long-Term Road Test

We're keeping our long-term 2014 Ram 1500 EcoDiesel a bit longer. We want to know what else our readers want us to cover.

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kirkhilles1

Since you're pushing out of warranty, I'd like to see a whole lot of miles racked on and the potential for some realistic repairs. Clock in the miles and lets see how she holds up.

yellowbal

Tug-o-war with the F150. 0-45-0 towing race against the F150.

allthingshonda

Why don't you keep it like a real owner, drive it till it costs too much to repair. I would love for somebody to do a real long term test, 100,000+ miles and many years of use. Oh wait, you can't because you don't own any of your long term vehicles. They belong to the manufacturer.

stever

From the introductory article:

Edmunds purchased this vehicle for the purpose of evaluation.

I haven't counted, but my guess is that Edmunds buys around half the long term fleet.

It'd be fun to pick the ten "worst" YouTube mods and go to town.

First up, paint it rattle-can Edmunds blue and then slam it. Since it's a diesel, may as well stick a couple of exhaust pipes up the cab and roll coal on the commute.

handbrake

Take it on a cross country trip, going off road as much as possible. No towing, no real hauling, just a long road trip spending as much time off interstates as you can muster. I'd like to know how this truck holds up with extended off road use.

ebeaudoin

handbrake said:

Take it on a cross country trip, going off road as much as possible. No towing, no real hauling, just a long road trip spending as much time off interstates as you can muster. I'd like to know how this truck holds up with extended off road use.

Agreed. I'd like to hear more about off-road worthiness.

bm10

Hit it with a sledgehammer twice to compare repair cost and damage to the aluminum ford.

gifters1

Take it to Banks Power and have them do their exhaust/tune for it

thegraduate1

Dyno test!

adamb1

One thing many people add to trucks that you have not to my recollection is a bed cover. It converts the bed into a locking, dry, secure storage place. The right cover, like the folding styles also move quickly out of the way for larges loads. A compare/contrast of styles (fiberglass hard, soft, folding, rolling, rigid) with pros cons and then info on living with one would be useful.

wrhikerbb

Do a couple of short comparison loops with the F-150. One with trailers, one without.

socal_eric

Long-term running costs would be nice to see broken down in a table to see how the economy works out with the added maintenance costs of the diesel. Not really too much more that I'd like to see. It's only one model and doesn't represent all Ram and EcoDiesel models sold, so even if you own it for a lot longer and has component failures it may or may not be representative of the brand/model.

The off-road use is something that might be interesting to see how the suspension holds up, interior rattles develop, etc. If your staff really likes the truck (which I'm guessing they do since you're planning on keeping it longer) I also wouldn't mind if you documented wear points like the recent daily update on seat condition. Take some before/after pictures of things like steering wheel leather, switch gear, arm rests and other touch points, carpet and so on to see how they stand up over the long haul.

Another area might be to test out some of the aftermarket performance upgrades and how they affect power, reliability and economy. That might not help resale and could potentially hurt, so that might be something against it since I'd be interested to see what depreciation looks like on the diesel. It costs more to buy but you usually gain better resale with the Cummins models and I'm curious to see if that holds true on the 3.0L.

jaro360

I think a more direct comparison with similar loads back to back with the F-150 (power/acceleration/control/ride) I think the fuel economy lead over the f150 has been proven time and time again at this point.

jerrry44

I totally agree with doing the sledgehammer test on the ram. Would be very interesting to see the extent of the damage and the cost of repair. I would also like to see a real ong-term test. I expect my vehicles to be nearly flawless at least to 100,000 miles. 40,000 miles is nothing.