Just out of curiosity how much weight can the 4th gen handle with their coil springs? How much have you put in? How did it handle it?

 

I had 1700 lbs in the back + me 250 + my nephew 170. I also have the air bags installed which seemed to help alot.

 

I have found the Ram to handle the weight very well. I have found the coil springs give the truck great handling even under heavy weight. I was a hard skeptic when shopping for trucks last winter and was truly worried with its ability to keep up with the other half tons equipped with leaf springs. However, I was greatly pleased to find out that it could tow with ease. I have towed a 7,000lb excavator plus a the trailer so about 9,000lbs..it handled it handily, very much impressed.

 

I put about 1.5 yards of topsoil in the back of my stock SXT.. Which is about 2000-3000 lbs or 1-1.5 Tons. Three bucket loads from the rear of a backhoe, rather large bucket. And on another occasion, three bucket loads from the front of a John Deer tractor. I couldn't close the tailgate on that one and the soil was almost to the top of the back window. There was about an inch to inch and a half clearance in my wheel wells. Took it slow from the yard that time.

 

We have run about 1300 in the back (wich I think is about the maximum payload according to the specs) + me (205 pounds) + friend (240 pounds) + full tank of gas + some extra things in the rear seat.
The truck is totaly original, no air bags/leveling kit etc.

The car sits a little on the back, but not as much as I would have thought.
Gets a little bit slower from the redlights, but no problem their either.

I don't think the problem is how much weight it can take on the springs, but how it handles on the road!


/Jocce

 

Very little sag with my 4500 lb fifth wheel.I don't know the pin weight.

 

I pulled a uhaul trailer (~2100 lbs) plus a hot rod (~3000 lbs) plus me and two friends (~600 lbs total) from San Diego to AZ. The truck sat level so no sag at all really, up and down some pretty good grades. The truck handled it great, accelerated slower of course but the engine braking was great. Ran at 75 no problem and averaged 12 MPG. Didn't even notice it was there except for accelerating and very little on normal braking.

 

I have never understood the general skepticism a lot of people seem to have with the coil over suspension. This is actually a far more sound design to handle loads and towing. The 5 links in the coil design handle the rotational, axial, and longitudinal motions of the axle. Meanwhile the coils are responsible for solely for the vertical (weight bearing) motion of the axle. This provides for a very stable and predictable axle motion which directly translates to a stable, predictable truck even under unusual loading/ accelerating/ cornering/ braking conditions.

About the only significant design flaw (in some people's eyes) is the fairly low spring rate of the coils that can sometimes lead to undesirable sag under relatively light loads. As long as the sag is not excessive and causes too much unloading of the front tires then the capability and reliability of the truck is in no way affected. However, this 'flaw' helps provide an exceptionally smooth ride. So for those whose egos bruise easily and feel emasculate when you truck drops an inch or two while towing, you can use airbags to mitigate the sagging under load.

The leaf spring on the other hand is solely responsible for locating the axle under the truck during all loading conditions (i.e. cornering, braking, towing, etc). This can lead to unusual loadings on the springs creating moments and forces the spring was not designed to handle. This in turn causes those weird axle motions like axle wrap, wheel hop, excessive lateral motion, etc. In short the leaf spring is a compromise. Its a simple design that is easy to manufacture, cheap and does its job fairly well. But it lacks in its ability to maximize axle (and therefore truck) stability.

 

It handles weight well, both in the truck and towing.

At one point we've had over 2000lbs of cargo in the bed and rear of the cab (we have a quad cab) as well as two people in the front (dad + mom at a total of about 370lbs). (I loaded the truck but did not go on the trip). I will say that we were technically over the GVWR on this trip, but the truck did fine and managed 16mpg at 75mph with the 3.21 gears.

I've also done another trip where we had about 1000lbs of cargo + 3 people totaling about 550lbs and we did pretty well. About 16-17 mpg (don't remember exactly) at 80mph.

Just recently I did a trip with 4 people totaling about 650lbs and probably 750lbs of stuff in the bed. However, we did do about 80 miles of "off roading" (rough dirt road) and the truck handled it beautifully.

We've also towed about 6000lbs with no issue.