Just returned from a Tulsa to Chicago and back trip in which my Ram towed a 16ft trailer loaded down with furniture and shipping boxes. A friend of mine had a POD and did not want to pay the 1700 to have it shipped down, so i purchased and self-installed the hitch and wire harness and off we went!

The truck handled great esp when he hit a storm front and experienced some quite strong side gusts. But here is the low down on the power vs. hills and some personal opinons.

To be honest i have never been impressed with the way the cruise control factory settings have been in my Ram. The computer seems to jump the RPMs up to an insane level and seems to work the engine harder then it needs to be. I have found that when i come upon a hill that I cancel the cruise control and manually increase the RPM to around 3200 rather then the 3700 to 4000 the computer seems to choose.

When towing the trailer load back from Chicago in the hilly part of the trip i would attempt to reduce the engine work load by increasing my speed on the down hill slope and using that momentum to help on the next upslope. Thus not taxing the engine as much as i would having to start the climb at the lower RPM and MPH settings. I swear the one time I was not paying attention and the engine jumped to 5k RPM i saw my gas level indicator drop at least 1/8 of a tank! ha.

While on the return trip the coolant temp never moved and I was impressed by the amount of power that the little V6 could muster. Granted the V6 is under powered for this truck, but i was still impressed the engine did what was required of it. I don't think i would pull that size of a load on a daily basis but for someone that has a need to pull once every three months or so it will work. Just remember to have a lot of cash on hand to fill up the tank because mine was sucking down the gas like an okie having beer at the bar on payday!

 

its cool to see that the little v6 can tow if it has to....

 

You are correct about the cruise control, it is junk.

I always cancel the cruise going up hills, on large hills I down shift to 4 gear.

doing this will increase your gas mileage.
last summer I went 500 miles west from Ohio and got 24.5 mpg with a 800 lb motorcycle in the bed and 24.0 mpg returning to Ohio.


Chuck

 

Well I think i may have been well over the recommended towing weight for the poor V6. It was a 16 ft trailer with the entire contents of a POD on the trailer and in the bed of the truck. One thing that i did not experiment with was switching out of the tow/hull feature during level ground travel. I would have loved to see how much that would have saved me on gas. The only thing stopping me was the thought of how much money i would rack up on engine damage i could have done.

Like i said, I don't pull a trailer very often and esp not one that was loaded down with as much weight as this one. But the ol' ram pulled thru and got me from point a to point b without problems. I might have to upgrade the truck when i get the pontoon boat.

 

The 3.7 motors are work horses, I believe that is the reason they kept them in favor of the new 4.0.