Ram 1500 EcoDiesel quiet, composed
Roomy pickup an ideal fishing companion
Derek McNaughton is driving a 2014 Ram EcoDiesel for a month this summer as part of a long-term road test. Here are his impressions after week one.
The South Frontenac lake is legendary for its Largemouth Bass. Isolated, private and silent save for a few loons, the tiny Ontario lake purportedly yields some impressively fat fish from its deep, dark waters. The only problem is access, obtained via swamps and beaver dams.
Google maps, however, revealed an old access road to this lake — a perfect route for the 2014 Ram Laramie EcoDiesel Quad Cab we have on loan from Chrysler Canada for a month in a longterm test of the only half-ton on the market with a diesel engine.
The access road proved better than many private lanes: grassy, wide and over mostly solid ground. And the EcoDiesel under the domed hood of our silver and grey Laramie 4x4 was quiet enough not to illicit any unwanted attention as my two sons and I quietly made our way through the woods to the lake early one warm morning last week, each of us filled with a giddiness of potentially catching “the big one.”
The Ram’s turbo diesel, while not as quiet as an Audi or BMW diesel, is just right for a truck — enough clatter and turbo whistle to give our Ram a stouter DNA than most Rams are born with — but never so much to annoy. In fact, on the highway the EcoDiesel (a $4,500 option) purrs as quietly as any gasoline motor. There is no coarseness whatsoever. And after the first week, I’ve come to love the diesel’s combination of sound, torque (420 pound-feet) and outstanding fuel efficiency, having registered 8.2 litres per 100 km in highway use, and 9.5 urban.
Of course, there is no smoke whatsoever from the exhaust and hardly any diesel smell because of the diesel oxidation catalyst, particulate filter and other catalytic reductions. A gauge on the dash also shows how much diesel exhaust fluid remains in the tank — such a simple but valuable meter.
The 3.0-litre diesel — surprisingly not a Cummins but aniron-block and aluminumhead V-6 supplied by Fiat’s VM Motori — does exhibit some turbo lag on takeoff despite its variable geometry, but the eight-speed TorqueFlite transmission (standard with EcoDiesel) picks up much of the slack to make for a strong union of engine and gearbox.
I wish Ram had equipped the truck with some paddle shifters behind the wheel, as corny as that sounds in a pickup, because we only get two tiny buttons smaller than postage stamps on the steering wheel to manually shift gears, and I do find myself wanting to gear down earlier than the TorqueFlite wants to shift.
The main shift control is an aluminum rotary dial for shifting from Park to Drive etc., an ideal solution that frees up space and works well. Despite the harping I hear from traditional truck owners about this shifter not being rugged enough, my advice to them is this: after two weeks, you’ll learn to love the clean efficiency of this dial.
In the bed of the pickup, which measures only 49 inches between the tie down loops, and about seven feet with the tailgate down, was my four-metre canoe and small kayak, strapped down tight. The bed in our test truck is so narrow because our fully loaded unit, stickered at just over $70,000, is optioned with Ram cargo bins in the box hips. These bins, a $1,200 option, are brilliant — they lock, along with the doors and tailgate, when the key fob or interior lock button is pressed. The Ram boxes come with lights and are waterproof, but have drain plugs if you want to use them as coolers. The handles could be better configured but the boxes are long enough to hold shotguns, rifles and ammunition — though they do eat up box width, leaving ours too narrow to carry a current model Yamaha Grizzly ATV. Our 5’7” box has only one light paired with the high-mount brake light, unlike the new Ford and GM trucks that employ LED lights in the box itself.
None of that mattered on this morning, however, as my boys and I were after some big bass. With the access road slippery from morning dew and loose rocks, I engaged the automatic 4x4 mode — again through a button that is too small — but drove effortlessly down the threekilometre path to reach the small lake, where the promise of some monster Large mouth Bass was realized within the first hour.