malibubts's 2015 Ram 1500 CCSB Build

[Martinjmpr]

Yes, the decreased fuel consumption of the diesel does offset the higher cost of diesel fuel. If you enter all the variables (annual mileage, fuel costs, combined mpg) into an excel sheet, you'll see that ecodiesel saves you money, despite the higher cost of diesel.

That margin of savings varies with time and annual mileage. Low time horizon (1-2 years) and low annual mileage (5k miles) will result in a lower margin of savings with the diesel. The longer you own the vehicle and the more annual miles you put on it, the greater the margin of savings.

I'll let the OP chime in with his own experiences regarding the 3.0l ecodiesel. Generally-speaking, diesel maintenance (DEF, fuel filter, oil changes) will add another $80-$150 of annual maintenance.

Thanks. That's the kind of info I'm seeking out. WRT the cost difference between gas and diesel, I've gotten pretty adept at "sniffing out" the cheap gas when I need it, and I presume that if I got a diesel I'd get equally adept at finding the best price on diesel in whatever area I'm in. I find the GasBuddy app to be very helpful in that regard, but I imagine there are probably diesel-specific apps out there that people use?

Based on my current usage, I seem to be doing on average about 11,000 miles annually, which is on the low side. Of those 11,000 annual miles, I'd say half of them are pulling a 3500lb trailer through Colorado and surrounding states.

Per the specs I've seen, the 3.0 Ecodiesel is a little low in terms of HP but torque is equal to the Hemi if not better.

Of course, almost anything is likely to be an improvement over my 14 year old Suburban. The 5.3 is not known as a particularly powerful motor (at least not in stock form) nor is it particularly fuel efficient (my overall average for the last 32 months has been 12.7. Of course, most of that was either driving to/from work or pulling a trailer, both of which are MPG killers.)

I guess my final question would be this: Other than MPG and high torque relative to engine size, are there any other particular advantages of diesel over gasoline engines?

What I have to do now, I suppose, is actually try to drive a few.

 

[malibubts]

How has all the mods affected your MPG's? I'm seriously impressed with the stock mileage of that ECO-Diesel. A truck that big getting 27mpg is almost unbelievable!

I bought pretty much this identical truck (even the color) as a 2017 model. I'm already planning on a lift and bigger tires. Also curious how these 2 items affected the fuel economy.

Mine is also 4WD and I did the longest trip in it yet this past weekend about 400 miles and it averaged 27mpg (mostly hwy 10% city) going around 70mph when I could. Lots of going up hills.... but also coming back down them from sea level up to 6000ft (Spicer Reservoir in Bear Valley, CA). I normally do about 80% hwy and 20% city with an indicated 24mpg average.

I seem to have lost about 2 MPG from all the suspension and tire changes. My commute averaged 24-25 before everything and now I average 22-23. Really not too bad in my opinion for 2" of lift, removing the front valance and switching from 265/70/17 P to 285/75/17 E tires.

I ran the AT3W's for about 25,000 and pulled them off, going back to KO2's. The falkens are a tough tire that wear like Iron, but they're mediocre at best in deep snow and mud, and terrible on ice (I live in Northern Canada). If I lived south, i'd have the Falkens for sure.

Hopefully I have a better experience, I'm not getting nearly as much snow as you I'd imagine, but we still average around 70 inches a year here. They've been great so far and it don't recall reading many other folks with issues during the winter.

 

[malibubts]

I'm going to try to put together the best response I can on TCO while also not creating a book here. There are really a ton of variables, but I'll share my experience. I just knocked out my 60K maintenance and am sitting just under that mark as far as total mileage goes, unless otherwise noted any averages will be over this time frame. I track all maintenance and fuel usage in a software program, so these are real numbers here. I think the best way to break everything out will also be cost per 10K miles, this should make it fairly easy to scale out to any interval you want to compare.

I as much of my own maintenance as I can, so any costs listed will just be parts and not include labor. If you don't feel like getting down and dirty YMMV.

First up on the extra maintenance route is fuel filters. The service intervals on these are every 20K miles, so I have replaced mine 3 times to this point. I've spent $83.05 in total on fuel filters, which breaks down to $13.84 per 10K miles.

Next on the maintenance list is DEF, on the EcoDiesel they designed the tank at 8 gallons to last between 10K service intervals. In reality I've had to fill up quite a bit less. I'm at 5 fill ups for a total of 33.58 gallons on 53,816 miles since I have not had to fill up to match the 60K service interval. That's for a total of $92.58 or $2.76 a gallon. We'll call that 50K for easy math and we get $18.52 per 10K miles.

Last up on the maintenance front is the oil changes. There is a bit of extra oil involed as a full change is 10.5 quarts. The filter on this truck is also the european cartridge style and is a little expensive from the dealer. However this truck has a specified 10K service interval. My last truck was a GM 5.3L which specified 5K miles; some quick internet searching shows the current 5.3L and the EcoBoost to specify 7.5K miles. So even though the service will be slightly more expensive, you'll be doing it less often. I am going to call this one a wash since I don't feel like doing all the math involved here.

So maintenance will run you an extra $33 per 10K miles.

The final cost isn't maintenance related, but is the additional purchase price of the engine. Over the Hemi, the EcoDiesel was a $3,000 MSRP. I paid about 20% less than MSRP for the truck, so we are looking at $2,600 adjusted. It's worth keeping in mind here that with Ram you can get the diesel on any trim level, unlike the GMC and Ford trucks where you have to buy the higher trim level.

Moving on to the MPG front I am going to pull these numbers from Fuelly and also add in my experience with the EcoDiesel:

• F150 2.7L EcoBoost is at 18.3 MPG
• Chevy 1500 5.3L is at 16.6 MPG
• Ram 1500 EcoDiesel is at 22.1 MPG
• Ram 1500 EcoDiesel is at 24.5 MPG (Personal Average)

I've averaged $2.47 per gallon on diesel, which I am going to ignore for the calculations and use the national average. I usually pay around $2.80 in the summer and around $3.00 in the winter. My average earlier is lower due to fuel perks I will occasionally have. I could filter those fill ups out, but don't feel like doing the work. AAA puts us at $2.865 for Gas and $3.154 for Diesel. I'm going to ignore that several manufacturers recommend using mid-grade and stick to regular since I doubt many people follow that.

Cost per 10K miles:

• F150: 10K Miles / 18.3 MPG = 546 Gallons * $2.865 = $1,566
• Chevy: 10K Miles / 16.6 MPG = 602 Gallons * $2.865 = $1,717
• Ram: 10K Miles / 22.1 MPG = 454 Gallons * $3.154 = $1,433
• Ram (P): 10K Miles / 24.5 MPG = 408 Gallons * $3.154 = $1,287

EcoDiesel Advantage:

Ram v F150: $100 per 10K miles or $2,500 at 250K miles
Ram v Chevy: $250 per 10K miles or $6,250 at 250K miles

Ram(P) v F150: $246 per 10K miles or $6,150 at 250K miles
Ram(P) v Chevy: $397 per 10K miles or $9,925 at 250K miles

On the worst case you break even against the 2.7L EcoBoost on the lifetime of the truck and accounting for purchase price. I'd argue it'd be more fair to compare against the 3.5L to better match the engine capabilities, but there you go. Against the 5.3L is where you really start pulling ahead. For what it's worth my experience on the EcoDiesel is also quite a bit better than the average from Fuelly. Also in my experience 16.6 MPG is spot on for what I got in my GMC. For my particular situation I'm looking at a savings of $397 per 10K miles or nearly $10,000 at 250K miles.

It's also not worth discounting the extra range per tank and less time spent at the pump. Again back to my experience I'm at 194 less gallons per 10K than the F150 or about 10 stops at the fuel pump. I know you can get the larger fuel tanks in the F150s, but I will spitball those at $500 which will decrease your breakeven point. And if you really want maximum range I know titan makes a 39 gallon tank replacement, I wish I could swallow the $1,000 price tag for the even greater range.

I ran the numbers before buying and determined I'd save a good chunk of change given what I'd seen on the forums for averages. Aside from that I also just wanted the diesel and had for years. You bet I would have gotten a 2500 and a diesel if I could have justified the extra $10,000.

I think this still ended up turning into a book, but hopefully it answers your questions.

 

[malibubts]

I have a question about cost-of-ownership:

The fuel economy figures of the Eco Diesel are very tempting, but how has total cost-of-ownership been compared to a gasoline truck?

Two things concern me: First of all, diesel fuel is anywhere between $0.30 and $0.60 per gallon more. At a worst case scenario of diesel fuel having a .60 premium over regular unleaded, that means diesel has about a 20% price premium. So that means I have to get 20% better MPG just to break even on fuel costs.

The second thing is DEF and whatever additional maintenance costs are associated with a diesel. Beyond routine maintenance like oil and filter changes, what diesel-specific maintenance has to be done and what is the (approximate) cause of said maintenance?

I've always been somewhat skeptical of the glowing praise of diesel but I have to admit that if the figures I'm seeing regarding towing capacity and MPG are accurate, they could make for an excellent light towing vehicle for our R-Pod travel trailer (about 3500lbs loaded weight.) Much as I'd love to go "whole hog" and get the 2500, this vehicle also has to be my daily driver and it doesn't make sense for a suburban dweller like me to have a 2500 that's going to get me 10 - 11 MPG. My current 2004 Suburban does that, I was hoping that something a little newer would yield me better MPG.

Thanks. That's the kind of info I'm seeking out. WRT the cost difference between gas and diesel, I've gotten pretty adept at "sniffing out" the cheap gas when I need it, and I presume that if I got a diesel I'd get equally adept at finding the best price on diesel in whatever area I'm in. I find the GasBuddy app to be very helpful in that regard, but I imagine there are probably diesel-specific apps out there that people use?

Based on my current usage, I seem to be doing on average about 11,000 miles annually, which is on the low side. Of those 11,000 annual miles, I'd say half of them are pulling a 3500lb trailer through Colorado and surrounding states.

Per the specs I've seen, the 3.0 Ecodiesel is a little low in terms of HP but torque is equal to the Hemi if not better.

Of course, almost anything is likely to be an improvement over my 14 year old Suburban. The 5.3 is not known as a particularly powerful motor (at least not in stock form) nor is it particularly fuel efficient (my overall average for the last 32 months has been 12.7. Of course, most of that was either driving to/from work or pulling a trailer, both of which are MPG killers.)

I guess my final question would be this: Other than MPG and high torque relative to engine size, are there any other particular advantages of diesel over gasoline engines?

What I have to do now, I suppose, is actually try to drive a few.

Going to answer your questions a little more directly here as well, I was a little general in my earlier post. Plus that one got a little long winded.

In northern Ohio I'd say I see gas average around $2.80, with diesel about the same during the summer and in the low $3.00 range during the winter. I pretty much hit the maintenance in the main post.

I've towed a 3,500# ski boat a few thousand miles and I sat around 20-22 MPG doing so. Those are mostly highway miles and also numbers from before the lift and tires. I'd imagine your trailer is a bit more of a sail, but I wouldn't be surprised if you would be looking at around 18 MPG while towing on the highway.

I don't feel the engine is underpowered at all with the lower HP numbers. I have really become accustomed to the style of driving and rather prefer it. You'll have no problem merging on the highway or anything, but the truck isn't a speed demon. It's a more torquey purposeful type of acceleration if that makes sense.

As I mentioned in the last post, I felt a world of difference moving from my GMC 5.3L. You seem to be doing a little worse in the MPG department on yours as well. You'd end up almost doubling your range and spending half the time at the pump.

To your last point, it's all about the MPG and torque. You are essentially getting the equivalent of a gas V8 with anywhere from 20-40% better fuel economy.

Personally I'd make the same choice over again. If you are interested find one and give it a test drive and see if it's for you.

 

[McCarthy]

I seem to have lost about 2 MPG from all the suspension and tire changes. My commute averaged 24-25 before everything and now I average 22-23. Really not too bad in my opinion for 2" of lift, removing the front valance and switching from 265/70/17 P to 285/75/17 E tires.



Hopefully I have a better experience, I'm not getting nearly as much snow as you I'd imagine, but we still average around 70 inches a year here. They've been great so far and it don't recall reading many other folks with issues during the winter.

They're not bad, they're just not as good as a few other tires. I suspect most people would like them, but my truck is in 4WD pretty much from Nov-March with all the snow we get, and during break up and fall freeze the roads turn into feet of clay mud nastiness.

 

[malibubts]

After posting a bit this week in the build thread I realized I never posted after a trip to ANF earlier this summer. Summer has been pretty crazy so far this year (work trips, weddings, baby showers, etc) so I haven't been able to get out much and lost track that I didn't post this. It also doesn't help I'm on call every third week, hopefully as we move into late summer and fall I'll get more time back and be able to get out more.

But as I mentioned, I hit up ANF earlier this summer. By now I've been out that way a few times and still hadn't seen the Kinzua Bridge. If you're unfamiliar with it, it's an old train bridge that crosses over the Kinzua Valley. The bridge has since been closed to train traffic and serves as a pedestrian look out. Sometime in the early to mid 2000s a tornado hit the area and knocked over a good chunk of the bridge. What was left can be walked out onto and there is also a trail that walks you down into the valley to check out the wreckage.

So this bridge was a pretty main focus of this trip. Below is the route, which is started to get pretty cluttered from previous trips in the ANF:


061718_Route by ebeiersdorfer, on Flickr

I also realized after getting to camp the first night I forgot my DSLR, so I wasn't the best at taking photos this time around. My phone did OK, but the DSLR does a much better job with metering and the like.

We got to Tracy Ridge campground on Friday night and hiked some of the trails around the site. There really wasn't anything spectacular there, but we wanted to get the doggo tired and at least do something before night.

The next morning we hit some forest roads and headed to the Kinzua Bridge. We walked out to the observation deck first, which is about 225' off the valley. It's a pretty cool view and a decent portion of the original bridge structure still remains.


20180616_125600 by ebeiersdorfer, on Flickr

The observation deck was pretty cool, but if you make it out this way the trail down into the valley is much better in my opionion. From up top it doesn't really give you the sense of scale on this bridge and how powerful those winds must have been.

View from the head of the trail:


20180616_130343_HDR by ebeiersdorfer, on Flickr

Starting to head down:


20180616_131017_HDR by ebeiersdorfer, on Flickr

Wreckage at the bottom:


20180616_132416_HDR by ebeiersdorfer, on Flickr


20180616_132854_HDR by ebeiersdorfer, on Flickr

After the bridge we loaded up and headed west. We stopped a Jake's Rocks for a little more hiking before getting to camp.

View of the river:


20180616_153647_HDR by ebeiersdorfer, on Flickr

We then made camp off of FR160 for the night. We had to get back early on Sunday. Rather than checking anything else out we woke up and headed home.

As a minor build update, I received a tablet mount for Christmas which I installed earlier this year. This was the first trip I got to use it and it worked out pretty well with Gaia GPS:


GOPR0169 by ebeiersdorfer, on Flickr

And also to close the loop a little more on the fuel economy front, below is my trip average including the highway travel for that weekend:


20180616_190714_HDR by ebeiersdorfer, on Flickr

This number is post new tires, lift, and removal of the front valence. My computer was also adjusted for the new tires and is normally very close to a hand calc.

 

[SnowZone77]

Great build, thanks for sharing! I have almost the same truck, and have added most of the same upgrades (Decked, wildpeaks, etc). Just wondered if you corrected the speedo when going to the larger tires? I’ve been researching different options but haven’t settled on one yet.

 

[Martinjmpr]

Great pictures. We don't get many Northeastern trip reports.

The bridge is awesome. There's something almost mystifying about coming across and abandoned or derelict site (I even started a thread on the topic years ago in the photography section that's still going.)

My favorite ones are old cold war sites. There are 11 abandoned missile bases here in Colorado and I've seen all but one of them. Old radar sites, coastal artillery garrisons, NIKE missile bases - lots of cool stuff out there to explore!

 

[malibubts]

Great build, thanks for sharing! I have almost the same truck, and have added most of the same upgrades (Decked, wildpeaks, etc). Just wondered if you corrected the speedo when going to the larger tires? I’ve been researching different options but haven’t settled on one yet.

Looks good!

Yeah I corrected the speedo. I have an Edge monitor mostly to watch for regens, but that will correct the speedo. Knocked it out right quick in the parking lot after they mounted up the tires.

Sent from my LG-LS993 using Tapatalk

 

[malibubts]

I haven't been to happy with my camp kitchen setup on the past few trips so I started at looking at options to improve it. I'd been using a cheap plastic tub from Lowe's with an Aquatainer for water. The tub was stout enough to hold the water container and made it difficult to tie everything down in the back of the truck. The tub also had a hard time fitting my Coleman stove.

I spent a while looking at options including the Aluboxes and knock-offs, but eventually found old surplus Hardigg cases that seemed like they would fit the bill. Once I got the case in it seemed perfect, except for wanting to add some dividers to keep everything organized. With a little plywood and construction adhesive I was able to do just that.

Packed:

DSC04197 by ebeiersdorfer, on Flickr

Unpacked:

DSC04189 by ebeiersdorfer, on Flickr

Haven't field tested it, but I'm heading to the UP next week and giving it a go.

 

[moderndaynorseman]

I haven't been to happy with my camp kitchen setup on the past few trips so I started at looking at options to improve it. I'd been using a cheap plastic tub from Lowe's with an Aquatainer for water. The tub was stout enough to hold the water container and made it difficult to tie everything down in the back of the truck. The tub also had a hard time fitting my Coleman stove.

I spent a while looking at options including the Aluboxes and knock-offs, but eventually found old surplus Hardigg cases that seemed like they would fit the bill. Once I got the case in it seemed perfect, except for wanting to add some dividers to keep everything organized. With a little plywood and construction adhesive I was able to do just that.

Packed:

DSC04197 by ebeiersdorfer, on Flickr

Unpacked:

DSC04189 by ebeiersdorfer, on Flickr

Haven't field tested it, but I'm heading to the UP next week and giving it a go.

That looks pretty decent. I've been using an action packer for my chuck box for the past few years. I can fit all of my dishes, cookware, and stove with room left over for dry/non refrigerated foods. Only thing I don't like is the angled sides waste a little space, but se la vie.

 

[gnx7]

I did a few camping trips the past few months and have clearly realized that I need a couple organized boxes for kitchen setup and misc items to simply make my packing time more efficient! I'll look into that box you built! I couldn't believe how long it was taking me to pack for a 3-4 day trip!

Of note- I bought a roof top tent and also some more affordable $300 aluminum racks to mount it to.... I didn't want to drop $750 on Thule adjustable height racks and after doing a couple thousand miles with the tent well above the roofline I calculated that it only zapped about 2 to 2.5mpg. It is nowhere near being aerodynamic in its current state without running it; however I plan to put a kayak up there and other items.... so it may just stay at the current height. I'm averaging 23mpg approx with 100% factory tune... and stock 4wd truck with MPH between 70-75mph.... closer to 71mph when I set cruise control. Prior I was getting about 24mpg mixed city/freeway driving mellow and same freeway speeds. I've been hammering on it a bit more now that it has over 6K miles as far as some freeway merging/sprints..... seems to be getting slightly better mpg due to more miles on it as well. Much better than my 14-15mpg 2003 Chevy Z71 Tahoe average!

 

[malibubts]

That looks pretty decent. I've been using an action packer for my chuck box for the past few years. I can fit all of my dishes, cookware, and stove with room left over for dry/non refrigerated foods. Only thing I don't like is the angled sides waste a little space, but se la vie.

I did a few camping trips the past few months and have clearly realized that I need a couple organized boxes for kitchen setup and misc items to simply make my packing time more efficient! I'll look into that box you built! I couldn't believe how long it was taking me to pack for a 3-4 day trip!

Yeah the bin I had before wasn't necessarily bad, but I knew I could do better. When I was using things in the bin before, nothing had its own space and everything was kin of exploded everywhere. I was just in the UP and used the new box, it was much easier to just put certain pieces out. It is big and heavy, but I'll probably only use it on bigger/longer trips. If it's just me on the weekend I can usually toss just a few things into my drawers.

Of note- I bought a roof top tent and also some more affordable $300 aluminum racks to mount it to.... I didn't want to drop $750 on Thule adjustable height racks and after doing a couple thousand miles with the tent well above the roofline I calculated that it only zapped about 2 to 2.5mpg. It is nowhere near being aerodynamic in its current state without running it; however I plan to put a kayak up there and other items.... so it may just stay at the current height. I'm averaging 23mpg approx with 100% factory tune... and stock 4wd truck with MPH between 70-75mph.... closer to 71mph when I set cruise control. Prior I was getting about 24mpg mixed city/freeway driving mellow and same freeway speeds. I've been hammering on it a bit more now that it has over 6K miles as far as some freeway merging/sprints..... seems to be getting slightly better mpg due to more miles on it as well. Much better than my 14-15mpg 2003 Chevy Z71 Tahoe average!

Yeah that's still some solid fuel economy even with the RTT. But adding that 10 MPG average was a night and day difference, I was in the same spot with my '07 GMC with the 5.3L. I'm still in warranty for about 35k more miles so I don't want to tune yet, but might once I'm out. Everything I read on the GDE tune is that you pick up about 2 MPGs.

 

[malibubts]

Upper Peninsula Trip Report from earlier this month.

 

[malibubts]

I spent a few days in the Monongahela National Forest a couple of weekends ago. I'm ending out the year with a little more vacation time than I anticipated and heard a co-worker talking about their trip to the New River Gorge. I decided I'd take a couple of days off and camp down in that area. As I started planning out the trip though, the MNF seemed to be a little more my speed.

The rough route:


Monongahela_Route by ebeiersdorfer, on Flickr

The first day was almost entirely pavement to get the 6 or so hours from Cleveland to the Dolly Sods Wilderness Area. The drive up FR75 though was pretty awesome since you gain about 2,000' in elevation by heading up the road to the Dolly Sods.

From the top:

DSC06657-Pano by ebeiersdorfer, on Flickr


DSC06647 by ebeiersdorfer, on Flickr

I did a little exploring around the area and some short hiking, but there really wasn't enough light to do too much before setting up camp at Red Creek.


DSC06582 by ebeiersdorfer, on Flickr


DSC06618 by ebeiersdorfer, on Flickr

The next day I set out down the rest of FR75 and made my way south to the Seneca Rocks area and hiked to the observation platform there.


DSC06718 by ebeiersdorfer, on Flickr


DSC06679-Pano by ebeiersdorfer, on Flickr


DSC06769 by ebeiersdorfer, on Flickr

This was a pretty cool little hike. The area was pretty filled up with climbers which was not too much of a surprise.

I made my way south towards Spruce Knob and ended up passing by a huge factory fire at the corner of 28 and 33. I ended up being able to see a decent amount of that smoke on a pull-off.


DSC06813 by ebeiersdorfer, on Flickr

But I got to the top of Spruce Knob and checked out the area. The observation tower they have is underwhelming, but the little path they have that loops around has some pretty cool views.


DSC06849-Pano by ebeiersdorfer, on Flickr


DSC06879 by ebeiersdorfer, on Flickr

I headed down the back side of Spruce Knob towards Spruce Knob lake. It was a really simple path around but I took the mile hike to wear the dog out a bit. There were probably 5 boats out on the lake and around 50 people fishing, the place was packed.


DSC06936 by ebeiersdorfer, on Flickr

I had initially planned on camping at the Gandy Dispersed camp sites not too far away, but Saturday was going to hold some not so great weather and I decided to push on. Looking back though, I kind of wish I would have stayed at one of the sites. I was making good time until I tried to access Canaan Loop Road from the West. I had seen there were some dispersed campsites there, but ended up running into locked gate after locked gate. Usually the USFS 2016 map on Gaia GPS is pretty accurate but the gates weren't on there.

After a decent amount of backtracking I ended up passing Canaan Valley State Park and grabbed a site there since it was starting to get later in the day. It was definitely more of an RV type of campground, but it wasn't too bad in a pinch.


DSC06951 by ebeiersdorfer, on Flickr

I had originally planned on doing some hiking around Blackwater Falls on Saturday as well as checking out the falls, but the weather was pretty bad when I woke up. I was able to catch a break in the rain and get packed up though which was nice. Blackwater Falls was essentially on the way home so I still decided to drop by.


DSC07060 by ebeiersdorfer, on Flickr

I was hoping the rain might let up a bit but it didn't. A good amount of fog also started to set in. I was able to get service and found it was now supposed to rain all day as well as snow around 3" that night. I decided to head home, but was still going to pass the Olson Fire Tower and figured it might still be worth the stop. Unfortunately I started gaining elevation and the fog kept getting thicker.

At the base of the tower:


DSC07093 by ebeiersdorfer, on Flickr

About halfway up:


DSC07081 by ebeiersdorfer, on Flickr

I think I'm going to need to make another trip out there when the weather is better. I really didn't get to see as much as I wanted on the last day and have a better feel for some of the areas and would change my route around given the locked gates.