I bought my Dodge Ram 2500 4x4 quad cab Hemi Laramie Sport new in January of 2003. It has 64,000 miles on it now.

The only complaint I have is with the u-joints. The rear one on the drive shaft was replaced at about 35,000 and the driver's front outer u-joint was replaced at about 55,000.

The valve train did get louder, so I put on a Flowmaster 40 series exhaust and a K&N air intake. Turning up the radio helps too.

If you are looking for power buy the Ram. If you are looking for fuel economy, buy the Toyota. My Ram pulls a forklift on a trailer every now and again (14,000 lb.), and a 27' travel trailer with a slide out (8,800 lb.) The thing just hauls b..t right down the road. It gets 12.5 miles per gallon city/hy combined empty, and about 7.5 pulling the heavy trailer, and 9.0-9.5 pulling the camper.

I plan on driving this thing til she drops, so keep posting every so often.

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I work the crap out of these trucks but I am a maniac about the maintenance and have always run Mobil 1 in all my trucks and synthetic differential and tranny fluid. have seen people lose motors and tranny's with 1/2 the miles of mine, but I know they don't maintain them properly.

80,000 towing 6000-8200 on my 2003 2500 4x2 reg cab only problem was with the cableless accelerator, fixed under warranty .

72,000 45,000 towing 2006 1500 4x4 quad cab no problems.

1999 Ram 1500 sport 4x4 off road package 257,000 working, hunting, hauling and still going strong. Tranny dumped on me 6 months ago pulling out of my driveway went inside and called a tow truck, came back out started it up, put it in gear and pulled off like nothing was ever wrong, another 10,000 miles since without incident.

198,000 65,000 towing heavy load for light truck, on 1996 1500 4x4 5 spd manual reg cab, sold with original enegine, did replace tranny at 152,000 and Rear at 176,000. I believe the failures were the result of abuse at the hands of a lead footed 16 yo in the AZ desert.

 

My 2003 1500 with the 4.7 has 168,000 on it and is still on original motor and trans.

 

I have a 2004 dodge 1500 hemi 4 door 4x4 and i have 81000 miles on it and runs like a raped ape. I stomped on my friends chevy 6.0 and my other friends chevy 5.3. I highly suggest the hemi's they have plenty of power and have great towing capabilities. And is kicka** off road. If you plan on towing with a tacoma you will get 6 mpg as soon as you hook a trailer up my buddy has one and it is terrible. DODGE POWER!!

 

I have a 2004 Ram 5.7L hemi 4x4 quad cab with 300,000 on it and I just blew a head gasket. Anybody else have any head gasket issues with the 5.7L

 

a guy i work with had 63K on his 04 5.7 hemi 2500....motor blew, needs rear end, transmission gettin crappy. all warenteed so its all brand new, and on dry pavement, i watched him burnout, and go right side ways down the road

 

If you treat any vehicle like that you will run into those kind of problems. I'm sure he didn't keep up on maintenance either by the sounds of it.