2019 Ram Heavy Duty First Drive: Putting 1,000 lb-ft of Torque to Work
Dodge Forum hauls 35,100 pounds up the snow-covered Nevada mountains in FCA’s premiere Ram 3500 pickup with pure ease.
The Ram Trucks brand recently invited a group of automotive journalists to Las Vegas, Nevada to test the all-new 2019 Ram Heavy Duty lineup. The automaker planned to use the open land and varying topography to display the incredible capabilities of the 2500 and 3500 trucks with Hemi and Cummins power. What the automaker didn’t plan on was the heaviest snow storm that Las Vegas has seen in some 15 years pounding the area while we were there testing the new trucks.
Fortunately, the 2019 Ram Heavy Duty lineup is so damn good that snow-covered roads proved to be no challenge for the strongest trucks in America. Even with the snow, the new 3500 had no problem pulling a 40-foot horse trailer down the Las Vegas strip or pulling a 35,100-pound machinery trailer up a four-mile incline, all in the lap of modern automotive luxury.
Hooking Up the Horse Trailer
My day driving the 2019 Ram Heavy Duty lineup began in a gorgeous two-tone 3500 Laramie Longhorn Mega Cab dually, powered by the high output Cummins Turbo Diesel engine. Knowing that I manage a horse stable and regularly pull a horse trailer, the Ram folks asked me to use this premium pickup to haul a 40-foot, 11,000-pound horse trailer from the Mandalay Bay hotel on the Vegas Strip to the location of our afternoon towing exercises two hours away. Of course, I jumped on the chance to pull a gigantic trailer down the Las Vegas Strip in the snow during the morning rush, but first, I had to hook up the truck and trailer.
The rest of the trucks and trailers were already hooked up, but this combination gave me the chance to experience the gadgetry of the 2019 Ram HD. By using the remote-opening tailgate, the cab-mounted camera system and the adjustable air suspension, I was able to put the big horse trailer on the towing ball of the truck without getting out of the vehicle.
I backed up to the trailer, pushed the button to lower the tailgate and used the 12-inch infotainment screen to switch to the camera mounted above the rear window of the cab, giving me a clear look at the fifth-wheel ball in the bed. Before backing up to place the ball under the fifth-wheel connection on the trailer, I used the air suspension controls to lower the rear end of the truck, so after moving the ball under the hitch, I used the air suspension controls to literally lift the truck back up, automatically placing the trailer on the ball.
At that point, I did have to get out of the truck to lock down the hitch, connect the chains, plug in the trailer harness and close the tailgate, but the 2019 Ram 3500 makes connecting to a fifth-wheel trailer remarkably simple. The camera system also has a feature that allows you to look down each side of the trailer with multiple angles, making backing the trailer up into a tight spot simpler. We didn’t get to test this feature, but in playing with it in the parking lot, it provides view of the trailer that you cannot get with any other OEM setup.
Cruising the Strip
Once the new Ram 3500 was hooked up to the 40-foot horse trailer, which had been loaded with sand bags to create a loaded weight of 11,000 pounds, we hit the road. If you have ever been to Las Vegas, you know what the Strip is like during the morning rush, with 10 lanes of cars, trucks, busses and rolling billboards creating nightmarish gridlock. When it snows in Las Vegas, the situation is even worse, as people who have literally never driven in snow are forced to drive in an area that doesn’t have snow-clearing equipment.
There was enough traffic along the Strip that the roads were only wet and slushy in some places, so getting away from Vegas was simply a matter of navigating through the dense traffic in a truck-and-trailer combination that measures nearly 60-feet in length. There were a few times where I had to “quickly” accelerate to change lanes, at which point it became clear that the 11,000-pound horse trailer posed no challenge for the high output Cummins engine. It is an age-old cliché to say that you can’t feel the trailer, but the new Ram 3500 is so strong that the huge horse trailer barely impacts low-end acceleration when driving in dense traffic. More importantly, the big Ram also had no issues bringing all of that weight down to a stop, even without the use of the engine brake system.
After creeping our way along the Las Vegas Strip, we eventually got out onto the highway and headed for the neighboring hills that would host the afternoon’s towing exercises. In much the same way that the horse trailer had little impact on low-end acceleration, the Cummins-powered 3500 had no problems with mid-range acceleration, like when entering the highway, nor did it have any issues maintaining fast-moving highway speeds. Best of all, the cabin of the truck was whisper-quiet even at highway speeds.
The first portion of my drive time was spent on the Las Vegas Strip and on the highway leading away from that area, all of which is flat. The snow had made the roads slick around the casinos, so if you hit the throttle too hard, the 3500 would quickly get to spinning all four rear tires, but it didn’t take a world of throttle-play to get the truck moving without spinning the tires. However, as we got out away from the heart of Las Vegas, we hit the snow-covered hills, which made pulling the horse trailer a whole lot more interesting.
Horse Trailer in the Hills
When I got into the hills around Las Vegas with the 2019 Ram 3500 mated to a horse trailer, the job got a little tougher. While I wasn’t having problems getting traction with the dually in rear-wheel-drive, I did switch to four-wheel-drive for the added security. With the snow that I drove in being the hardest that the area had seen in 15 years, the roads through the elevated areas around Las Vegas were lined with vehicles of people who had driven up into the local mountains to play in the snow. In many cases, tight, twisty areas were lined on both sides with vehicles that were barely off of the road and with the snow coming down hard at times, the footing was slippery in these tight spots.
Fortunately, the new Ram 3500 never missed a beat, easily weaving through the parked cars and along the icy roads without a problem. During this time, I also engaged the engine brake system, helping to slow the truck down during portions of the drive where we were headed down the snow-covered hills. Ram’s engine brake is among the best in the industry, and when coupled with the massive brakes on the new 3500 with the Max Tow package and the integrated trailer brake controller, I had no problems slowing down this big combo, even on the slick roads.
In addition to the people looking to play in the snow creating tight roads, they also caused some unusual traffic. There were several points in the drive where I found myself stopped on a steep uphill grade in the snow as someone tried to park in the deeper snow on the side of the road. In every case, the new Ram 3500 was able to smoothly get the load moving up the hill with minimal wheelspin, and once we were moving with good grip, the Cummins made short work of climbing the steep hills with the extra weight out back.
Mind you, an 11,000-pound horse trailer is a far cry from the limits of this truck’s capabilities, but for the many horse owners who use a trailer like this one, the 2019 Ram 3500 pulls like no other one-ton truck I have tested. From acceleration to cornering stability to braking, the 2019 Ram handles the horse trailer flawlessly.
2019 Ram Heavy Duty First Drive: Putting 1,000 lb-ft of Torque to Work continued…
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