Hemi in a 2500? yes it gets the job done, But, the rest of the drive train, ie automatic is garbage. I love my hemi 6speed man, just never had kind words for a automatics, esp dodge automatics.

If your looking for a work truck and not going to tow over 12,000 lbs the hemi is a wise choice, but you run into the problem of allways wanting to up size your ability to tow a bob cat, fith wheal toy hauler.

On the negative side of a ctd, you don't need a shot gun when you can by with a .22 to slay all your work tasks and thiers now no advantage with mpg over a hemi driving empty, towing with a ctd will get you better mileage .

On the negative of the hemi, 16 spark plugs that might last you a year if your working the truck hard, and no more 6speed man, On the negative of a a dodge HD truck, I have had issues with non serviceable U joints seazing up, but all makes like to use non servicable u joints.

Duramax with the allison 6speed automtic is in my opion a better choice than the CTD with dodges automtic, Driving booth dodge and GM heavy duty trucks I found the GM to have more power no matter the RPm range.

I may go back to dodge one day, CTD with a 6speed man.

 

Thanks again, guys - I'm hearing a lot of votes for the ctd, which would be my choice if I could afford the up-front cost. Unfortunately, the extra cash at buy-in along with the extra maintenance of the diesel makes that pretty tough. I guess it comes down to 2500 HEMI vs. 1500 HEMI. Hmmm.... ??

Also, for the record, I would ideally prefer a manual transmission. One mark against the Hemi.

 

I originally bought a '08 4x4 Laramie Cummins since I had plans for a 5th wheel toy hauler. Put a Carli suspension on it(to soften up the ride for daily duty) and man it was an awesome truck. When we shifted gears(and the bottom fell out of the economy) and decided not to do a 5th wheel the truck became a PITA to use for anything other than truck duty. Big, heavy, hard to park, DPF filter, etc... it quickly became "Dads toy" and rarely got used for anything other than towing the dirtbikes on the weekends. I had a monster and was pulling ~3000# of stuff max every other week. The new Cummins need load on them to be happy. They do not like daily duty. Although I never had an issue with it I only kept it 1.5yrs, sold it with 10K mi on it. Also - if you go Cummins watch for leftovers. I bought mine in Sept '08 when Dodge had $13K of incentives on the diesel 2500-3500s. Found this one on a dealer lot in Missouri and had it driven to the Carolinas. It had been on the dealer lot for a year but had all the options I wanted. I miss it sometimes, was much better at being a truck...



Fast forward to today - after trying to find a monocolor Hemi Laramie New Ram(and lots of striking out) my dealer finally let me order one around the same pricing we were discussing for lot inventory. I ordered this truck with exactly what I wanted and after 8mos and 6800mi I'm still loving it. It is an awesome light duty truck *and* the family loves it with rear heated seats, rear dvd, storage everywhere inside/out(with the RamBoxes) and it rides and handles great(I've put Bilsteins on it, lifted the front). The Hemi is really fun to play with, lots of power, but I'd classify this one as more of a van than a truck. It does fine with the bikes and all but haven't really tried pulling anything over the 3000# limit yet. Bought it with the integrated trailer brake and have yet to use it. I get the feeling its no where close to what my 2500 could do but then again I bought that one with thoughts of pulling 14000#. I guess it comes down to what you really will use it for. I don't think the Hemi would have any issues pulling 7-8000# but it doesn't *feel* like it would have the ***** to do more. The 2500 brakes are much better, 4 x 14" twin piston calipers on the Cummins. The 1500 needs some help stopping without a load sometimes but then again I drive it like I would a Challenger lol. Guess my recommendation is buy it for what you'll use it for. My Cummins was really a truck in every aspect. My 1500 van-like truck is much easier to live with, knowing I've sacrificed much of the truck aspects.



Oh, one final thing... mileage. Cummins was awful 13-17mpg best case with all that EPA crap on it. I can see getting low 20s if you pull all the cats/filter equiptment but you'll never get it with it on there. Hemi = worse than Cummins. Mine's really bad, like 11-16 bad, but I do keep my foot in the Hemi all the time(magnaflow setup + Hemi at 5500rpms = beautiful). Also add to that the heavy BFG KOs I run on my trucks... those really hurt the Hemi mileage about 2mpg overall.