I love mine. Smooth, powerful, will pull anything I put behind it. Things that my 96 struggled with, the 98 doesn't even notice.

 

My 01 5.9L Magnum hailed 11,500 really good

 

the magnum series may be the most durable engine ram ever built. I personally know someone who has 280k on the original 99 5.9 engine and built tranny. 11,500 really stresses the auto trannys of the 1500s, but they can do it, I've seen it and ride in one pulling 12k before. (The 5.9 I talked about earlier) My v10 shrugs off 10-13k lbs, it will pull it like nothing is there. The previous owner had hauled over 20k with the 5th wheel, and its rated for something like 16k I think. As has been said earlier, the only disappointment is the mpg.

 

My old 98 Durango with the 360 (5.9L) towed 23,000lbs before I sold it and could do 45 up a step grade. These trucks can do it just not "legally" I never owned a V10. But as I said would like to just to see what they are like. I'll take my mpg and availability of parts though over that little extra torque

 

Generally speaking, everyday tune up and maintenance parts aren't that big of an issue. It's the less common parts like the crank & cam sensors that get problematic. For example, I dropped the oil pan and pick-up tube on mine. I was able to reuse the pan gasket, but no one even had a gasket listed for the pick-up tube and mine was a mess. Luckily, I grew up making gaskets where I could so it wasn't any problem to just make one, but not everyone would have thought about that.

 

That's how me an my dad did it, making gaskets

 

I remember being rather annoyed when I found out you could actually buy gaskets for things like thermostat housings and other small things like that.

 

Yes but it comes in handy when you can't get a gasket or can't wait if they have to order it

 

No argument there.