Turns out I need a real truck. Kindly help me choose one!

[UglyViking]

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Buying the truck is proving to be more difficult than anticipated. Here are the highlights:

1. Exact configuration is near impossible to find. If I order the car, I'm looking at 4-6 months potentially more. I could be patient, but the wife wants to start overlanding in late April.
2. I will use AAA service
3. Some of the dealers in Colorado said they would only do trades within Colorado.
4. The dealer I visited last weekend, salesman doesn't seem interested in following up or asking me what I want. It seems that I need to chase them.
5. Dealing with car sales people is truly annoying.

That's where I am.......And I need to do some research into:

1. How difficult is to install (through a dealer) the Front LED Headlamps to replace the crappy lights these trucks come with.
2. How difficult is to install (through a dealer) the Rear Wheelhouse Liners

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These people are not interested in any discount beyond the general $2500 bonus. So I'm looking at 72k.......for a barebones truck missing some comfort and safety features, which is not optimal.

I'd strongly consider looking at Mark Dodge, Dave Smith, or even Granger. Most likely, even with the flight there and drive back, you'll end up thousands ahead vs buying local.

At this point, you shouldn't be paying anything close to MSRP for these trucks.

 

[chet6.7]

Some info on fitting 37's in the link below.
Expedition One.... a customer experience I will not forget.

 

[No Ma]

Thanks a lot for you feedback!. If I could ask you, what have been the negatives, or relevant issues you wish were better ? Is there anything you would have bought/configured different in your setup?

I appreciate any insight you could share. Thanks

Haven't come across anything yet that I would consider a negative. I'm very picky, but pretty realistic. Nothing's perfect. We ordered from the factory, so configured the truck to our needs. Bed liner and wheel well liners were two pretty cheap but great options. The 12" Nav system has been very useful. I put our travel apps on it with Android Auto and it works great.

I did want the surround cameras, but they were unavailable when we ordered due to pandemic related parts shortages. We travel some very tight trails and it would have been nice for visibility, especially up front, but we've done fine without it. On the visibility topic, I will say that on a couple of occasions, the A-pillar has been just a tad wide and requires a bit of leaning forward to make sure no one's coming around tight blind corners. A rare occurence and the visibility in the cab of the truck is way better than the visibility in our JKUR.

The Alpine sound system puts the subwoofer in the bigger under seat storage area in the back. Would have been nice as storage, but it's an okay tradeoff. The in floor storage buckets make up for it a bit, but are harder to access when we're loaded for travel with dog beds across the back seat.

Odds and ends... cloth seats are nice and wear like iron. Our truck seats are just like our Jeep seats which have been beaten unmercifully for years and are still in great shape. Front bucket seats are very comfortable. Front console holds large DSLR camera, 8x35 binoculars, hats, flannel shirts, OBDII code reader, headlamps with spare batteries, water bottles.

Haven't missed the LED headlights. We don't travel much after dark and we have a 30" LED light bar under the winch hoop on the bumper for off-road travel in bad light. The stock head lights aren't too bad at night even with the truck being lifted and on bigger tires. They are miles better than the stockers on our '16 Jeep... those had to go right away.

Do get a programmer, program or a shop that can reprogram your truck for the bigger tires. We used the AEV ProCal Snap. I like an accurate speedo/odometer and better fuel mileage estimates. It took a couple tries for me and a need to clear some fault codes when the tire size didn't take the first time.

Overall we really like our Ram. It's our preferred on-road travel platform and it just so happens to be our off-road rig too. My wife and I (and our dogs too) are really happy with it.

One last item. My wife is 5' tall. The stock truck is very tall. After the lift and 37"s it's really tall. I'm 6'1", so the grab handle is enough for me, but we carry a small 2-step fold flat step stool for my wife. With that and the sliders, no problems.

 

[hdas]

At this point, you shouldn't be paying anything close to MSRP for these trucks.

I agree. The issue is that due to the combination of preferred trim, features, color.......the options are limited, and most of the stuff available, that covers most of our features, is of higher MSRP, so even after a nice discount the price is not such a nice discount over our initial preferred build MSRP (79-82k), if that makes any sense.

 

[hdas]

Haven't missed the LED headlights.

Im trying to figure out if installing those is a pain in the ass.

The Alpine sound system puts the subwoofer in the bigger under seat storage area in the back.

This is not something we want, but some of the deals do include them, good to know that this is actually a negative.

We travel some very tight trails and it would have been nice for visibility

I agree that this seems a very useful feature.

Thank you for sharing your experience.

 

[UglyViking]

LED headlights are increadibly easy to add yourself. You pull a few plastic tabs, pop 2 painted trim pieces on the front, maybe 10-15 bolts, and install. I believe you add a small wiring harness if it's OEM that is plug and play, or if you go aftermarket I think it's strictly plug and play (alpharex and morimoto have good options). You then make a modification in alfaobd with a ~$99 OBD bluetooth reader (prob cheaper) and a $40 bypass cable (also prob cheaper).

I wouldn't let LED headlights alone stop you from a truck.

 

[andy_b]

...This is a long thread but why diesel? They are so heavy offroad on an already heavy truck...

I acknowledge that the OP has made their choice at this point but it is hilarious that this thread is now 15 pages long and one of the most consistent pieces of advice (in a thread asking for advice) is to avoid diesel.

Back in 2018, the migrant caravan held up my Ram 3500 so long that I ended up cancelling the order. It was probably around 5 months without a clear delivery date by the time I cancelled. At that time, I just brought in my build sheet and placed a deposit. It shouldn't be too hard to build a truck to your spec - and, at this price point, I would be seriously annoyed to settle.

 

[hdas]

I wouldn't let LED headlights alone stop you from a truck.

Yeah, the main feeling is that I'm spending 80k on a truck and I can't get everything I want. Or I have to wait 3-8 months. Seems insane. It's a very frustrating experience.

 

[Tex68w]

I’d go standard output Cummins just to avoid the Aisin. If you tow for a living then it’s not an issue but for a daily it’s border line brutal.

 

[Tex68w]

Yeah, the main feeling is that I'm spending 80k on a truck and I can't get everything I want. Or I have to wait 3-8 months. Seems insane. It's a very frustrating experience.

Check my old build thread. I put the factory blacked out reflector LED headlights in my Tradesman for around $1200. Thats both headlights and the custom harness and software needed to adapt them.

If you think 3-8 months wait is bad try being anyone ordering a Super Duty Tremor over the last two years, 10-16 months was the norm with many having their orders pushed to the next year model quite regularly.

 

[hdas]

LED headlights are increadibly easy to add yourself.

I think going from this:



To this:



Involves buying new headlamps, changing some electrical connections and all the mechanical stuff around it.

 

[hdas]

Check my old build thread. I put the factory blacked out reflector LED headlights in my Tradesman for around $1200

Thanks!.

 

[hdas]

Some updates:

• The wife is feeling strongly about being on the road in mid April.
• The wife is feeling strongly about wanting a black car not the "old man" metallic gray. I don't care either way, I'm happy to make her happy with the color of the rig.
• She found a car 2hours away, it's priced within our range, with a nice discount. But it's a Laramie, and the MSRP is a lot higher. It lacks some of the features I want.
• The missing features that are difficult to do afterwards are: Clearance Lights, 115Volt Aux Power Outlet, Dash Pass Thru Wire Circuits and I need to check on the dual alternators.

This is the tally, the prices include the advertised discount, but not any negotiation. Furthermore, Idk what is the average discount from negotiation alone, does anybody have a ballpark estimate?

 

[phsycle]

I’m not sure exactly where you’re heading to or what kind of terrain you’ll be traversing. But instead of trying to hit the jackpot of a build in one swoop, just try the thing out bone stock for a bit. Maybe a shell, some cheap Home Depot bins, and 33-35” A/T tires. You may be surprised.
Before this “overlanding” craze and Instagram, we just threw our crap in the back and headed out. My old 99 Tacoma, I had some aforementioned bins full of food, a 5 gal water jug, and a tarp to throw over the bed to camp under.

I’m not saying some upgrades aren’t needed. But maybe not ALL of them. And the only way to find out what would be of benefit is to just get out and see. Best of luck.

 

[Todd780]

I’m not sure exactly where you’re heading to or what kind of terrain you’ll be traversing. But instead of trying to hit the jackpot of a build in one swoop, just try the thing out bone stock for a bit. Maybe a shell, some cheap Home Depot bins, and 33-35” A/T tires. You may be surprised.
Before this “overlanding” craze and Instagram, we just threw our crap in the back and headed out. My old 99 Tacoma, I had some aforementioned bins full of food, a 5 gal water jug, and a tarp to throw over the bed to camp under.

I’m not saying some upgrades aren’t needed. But maybe not ALL of them. And the only way to find out what would be of benefit is to just get out and see. Best of luck.

Some sound advise there. Plus without the wait time you could head out now and get some time in outdoors.
Then if you decide you need some mods you could do it over winter.