From Dubs to Diesel.
In search of a lower payment, better fuel economy, better towing capacity, and more overall utility, we traded in our 2003 GMC Denali XL on 22’s for a 2006 Dodge Ram Megacab 3500 SLT with the Cummins Turbo Diesel motor over Memorial Day Weekend. And YES, the new truck cost less than our Denali and gets better fuel mileage, especially while towing. It should anyway—we haven’t had a chance to tow with it yet but even the worst mileage we’ve heard of while towing with the Cummins is still about TWICE the 6-7mpg we got towing with the Denali. Even with barely 400 miles on the ticker, the new Ram is already getting better mileage in mixed driving than the Denali did.
The Denali’s 6.0L is a great motor, but when you combine it with AWD and the wide 305 series tires we had on there, you end up with some pretty poor mileage. My XJ on 35’s got better around town and on the highway than the Denali did. That’s just sad.
Other than that we absolutely loved the Denali, and it was a tough decision to let it go, but I think in the long-run we’ll be better served by a big ol’ honkin’ diesel pickup truck. And let me tell ya, this is one big ol’ honkin’ diesel truck!
So enough talk, here are the deets: 2006 Dodge Ram Megacab 3500 SLT, 5.9L Cummins turbo Diesel, 48RE 4-sp auto trans, light khaki metallic paint, tan cloth interior, “premium” front bench, 17” alloy wheels, CARR side steps, Mopar drop-in bedliner and soft tonneau cover, Sirius satellite radio (wish it was XM!), power sliding rear glass, and the all-important roof lights.
More photos are on flickr.
5 Comments so far
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Very nice truck! Good upgrade from the Denali. Are you sure the auto trans isn’t a 5 speed (including overdrive)?
Yup. The Cummins get the 48RE 4-sp. The Hemi (which isn’t available in the 3500) gets the 545RFE 5-sp.
That’s a shame, seems like Dodge would want to compete with Ford and Chevy and offer the 5-speed auto with the diesel. Ah well, I’ve got a 2001 2500 Cummins w/4 spd auto and it does fine. Over 100K miles now and no problems. Enjoy that torque curve!
P.S. are you the guy that runs www.jeepin.com? Heck of a cool site, I’ve visited it for several years now.
Yup, that’s me. Glad you like the site.
I’m in a slow process of moving the whole site to a new host, so I just setup one of my ‘spare’ domain names, Jeepin.net, on the new host so I could setup some of the new parts of the site, like this blog and the revised forum.
Oh, and the current Allison trans that GM uses is a 6-sp.
Man, to have that trans behind a Cummins… wooo!
Just a note on the 5.7 gasoline HEMI. THe Hemi is available on the some 3500 models (depending on rear axle ratios), just not the 3500 Mega Cab, which has the Cummins standard.