Gadgetory

this is the 2013 dodge ram excuse me it's not a dodge anymore it's just the RAM the 2013 ram 3500 Laramie super cab 4x4 even the name of this thing is huge this is a gigantic truck I'm cheating a little bit because I'm on a hill right now but if I were to stand level with this vehicle the hood it comes up to my chin I mean it's just like a massive thing it's built to be strong not really fast everything about it is all about being beefy and able to take a lot of punishment and as you can imagine that sort of very strong construction actually makes this vehicle pretty well-suited for you know things like navigating construction sites although as you'll learn in a second it's maybe not the best for off-roading sort of 4x4 type thing now you can get the ram 3500 with a 6.7 liter Cummins turbo diesel that's actually an inline 6 but with more displacement though it's actually got some pretty big pots in there it's turbocharged and so you get a little bit more power and grunt on top of that already sort of like torque eNOS of diesel the upshot of that is that while your power goes down to about 370 horsepower torque jumps all the way up to 800 pound feet so that's just a lot of just you know not really speed but grunt that's gonna help you haul heavy things maybe not go so very fast now you would think that a vehicle with an engine this big with this much weight around it would get pretty bad fuel economy and if you look at the spec sheet the fuel economy is actually listed as not applicable because this isn't really even counted by the EPA as a consumer car it's listed as a commercial vehicle fortunately I was able to get about sixteen point six miles to the gallon out of this diesel engine but that was admittedly with a lot of very easy highway cruising so it probably represents what I consider to be maybe a best-case scenario for this year inside we're seeing a lot of the Chrysler DNA sort of starting to seep through its particularly in the design and layout of the dashboard and the steering wheel seems like a Chrysler bad should go right there in the center but then once you get from about the front of the seats on back the laramie longhorn in particular starts well you know doing some very truck ish cowboy things for example the long run additional all of this sort of brown leather that has embroidery on it that's supposed to look a lot like the designs that you'll see on the side of a cowboy boot this is the newest generation of the UConnect system the touchscreen interface the navigation system on this 8.4 inch screen is still actually a Garmin based but unlike the previous generation which kind of looked like a Garmin Nuvi just popped up on your dashboard when you hit the nav button this one has actually been restyled to look a lot more like the rest of the UConnect interface the benefit there is you don't really get that sort of jarring switch between two interfaces but then you also get one of the best navigation systems in my opinion on the market right now what are the other interesting things about this generation of UConnect is that it comes with the ability to download you connect apps and these are actually apps that are installed in the dashboard that get downloaded over the 3G connection that's built into this now this generation of you connect actually comes with you connect apps and that's sort of an in-dash app interface now right now the only apps that I've seen available for download are you know your travel link app that's going to give you actually access to some information that comes over your Sirius XM satellite connection and then Yelp is the second app that's actually installed on the air and that gives you user based reviews of destinations in the area one of the other interesting things you can do with the 3G connection that this vehicle has is turn on Wi-Fi hotspot' now chrysler and their UConnect system is going to charge you a monthly fee for that but once you've got it turned on you'll be able to share that 3G connection with other devices in the vehicle and a little bit further down here you'll see you've got like a bank of buttons right here with a bunch of different controls for towing things like it's right here to control the trailer and then you've also got a couple of interesting button right here this is actually the button that is added with the optional diesel exhaust braking system so you can turn that on when you're going down a very long descent and it'll actually use a little bit more of the back pressure from the exhaust system to help slow the vehicle and you'll kind of hear that little extra a little bit about when you do that you've got a big tech ometer over here on the left a big speedometer over on the right and then another gauge over here that's added by our optional urea injection system so this is the gauge for your diesel exhaust fluid and it basically gets sprayed on the exhaust fumes as they come out of the vehicle and helps catalyze some of the contaminants that are in that does help kind of clean up the emissions of the vehicle a little bit if you care about that but it is one more thing to worry about when it comes time to maintain this vehicle so now we're doing a little bit of a run the sort of dirt tracker technically rookie baton now down here we've got controls for the 4x4 system we've got settings for the 2wd which is actually a rear drive bias switching the the knob over here to four wheel drive lock allows you to lock the 4x4 system into a 50/50 split and that give you better traction for things like climbing hills and whatnot the trade-off though as i've noticed is the turn radius which is already that great suffers a little bit in that 4x4 a lot and the final setec which I'd actually have to stop and go to neutral form is gonna be 4x4 low that's gonna allow you to shift into that low range on the transfer case and even further multiply that a hundred pounds the of torque alright so we're gonna try to make a climb here but it's a pretty steep one when you first get on the gas there's not a lot of power but then that turbo the layer of sand over so we get a little bit of wheelspin but we're in the 4wd lock mode there is none of that it just goes right on up with that surge of power on the road ram 3,200 actually behaves well enough pretty smooth car on the highway although just like we saw on the unpaved trail the way this vehicle sort of doesn't really soak up so much as crashes over them leads to a lot of bouncing around the cabin and then also the engine sort of had three different temperaments there if the loads ever meant when you're just sort of moving around town you get that good low-end and diesel torque to give it a little bit more than the second stays it happens where the vehicles bring a little bit more life to get a bit more acceleration but you have that sort of third mode that you can take advantage of by you know really flirt putting the pedal to the metal in that cause of that turbo to spin up to fill up but it never really feels scary or dangerous I just always feel a little on edge like I've got to be paying a little bit more attention as it should a lot of people on the road now this Ram 3500 laramie longhorn crew cab wit T Cummins turbo diesel is gonna start to hit about 50 to 70 90 26:54 the lower rear axle ratio on the transmission and seven thousand seven hundred ninety five bucks for the urea diesel emissions fluid that's going to get you a little bit cleaner emissions if you want a lot more juice for your electrical accessories there 395 for dual 220 amp alternators and the full UConnect system is standard on this laramie longhorn edition as tested this example is gonna ring in at fifty seven thousand eight hundred and thirty-five bucks now that's a lot of money for a pickup truck but this is a big pickup truck that does a lot for your money so the only thing left to decide at this point is if it's too much truck for you