Its heck to be human....great information as always. Respect your experience. Have seen my share of wrecks from overload, lack of maintenance or equipment. Limited trucks out of my budget. For all that extra money can set up a less equipped work truck to be a safe, towing, hauling truck and afford better travel trailer. Really appreciate your channel. ALWAYS pick up something to make my traveling experience better/safer. Keep them coming!

My buddy,@ live your free, towed his travel trailer with his family in tow and he had nothing but good experiences in his ram 1500. These 1500s are pretty darn capable of towing the weight they say they will and do it comfortably honestly.

Great demonstration!!!

Again... absolutely love the honesty. Love the candidness (sorry for the spelling). Keep up the great work! Keep being you!

JD, great review as always. I own a 2019 Ram Limited just like this one and you are 100% right when it comes to what a truck like this can realistically tow. My truck is rated for 11300# but with its ~1330# payload you cannot really ever get close to that number safely. With this truck its really a compromise, it has the best ride in a half ton truck unloaded buy a lot at a sacrifice of overall capacity. For me my truck was bought as a luxury daily driver/occasional light duty tower and in that use case its excellent. My towing is mainly a 20' bassboat and a 12' motorcycle hauler and it handles both quite well. I have towed with mine a lot as well as other 1/2 ton trucks over the years and so long as you keep it within the cargo limits this truck has it is by far the best towing 1/2 ton truck i have ever owned. The self leveling suspension is the reason why. My boat for example is on a tandem with ~400# of tongue weight. My old 2014 Chevy Silverado 1500 with the max tow and 1800# of payload would squat ~2.5" and the front end always felt light and the steering would wander a little, my 06 Silverado and 02 Sierra felt the same way with the same trailer in tow. The Ram levels itself right out and drives so much better going down the road, especially at freeway speeds. I feel like the air suspension in this truck is not about increased capacity more than it is making what capacity it does have work better. One tip on using the air suspension to hitch/unhitch. Raise it all the way up in off road 2 first. Drop your jack so its just about touching the ground and then lower the truck. It will drop it far enough to just drive away at that point. I have my boat trailer setup so i can back underneath it in the lowest setting, raise it to off road 2, let it pick up the trailer, get out of the truck, latch the coupler, hook up chains and lights, swing the jack horizontal and just drive away. Unhooking is the opposite, start all the way up, get out of the truck, swing the jack vertical, unhook everything, unlatch, lower and drive away. Sometimes it helps to pop it in neutral to let he truck move if it gets stuck on the ball..... I have not cranked the jack up or down on my trailer in 3 years now, its great. Makes hooking and unhooking so easy.

I have a '13 with the air suspension and love it. It handles my toy hauler (with equalizer) and all my trailers great. It is 9 years old now with 133,000 miles and just now developed a problem leaking down. It leaks and pumps till the pump motor gets hot then the pump shuts down and you get a low rider with a beat you to death ride. It all started during a cold spell in the teens. I'm not looking forward to the repair bill but I still love the system.

Good video of the towing and payload of the Ram 1500. I currently have a 2020 Ram Rebel with the air suspension system, and I tow a 21 ft Lance travel trailer. It tow my Trailer very well, and the Truck is a dream to drive!

What an opening line for this video JD LOL!

My wife’s Chevy Tahoe LTZ has the air ride leveling also. Pretty cool to hook up a trailer to it and see it work!

I have the 2014 Ram Limited and I can pull my 7x14 dual axle enclosed trailer, and I love that the air suspension levels it. Like the newer Ram, but I want to go to a 1 Ton, so I can have more options in the future.

The hitch itself may have a 500# limit when used without weight distribution. This is common with half ton truck hitches. The owners manual usually has the spec for the hitch. Sometimes there’s a sticker on the hitch itself.

Solar panels just have such low payload capacities anymore. A dually solar panel could have easily taken the weight from being driven over.

You should be able to get a solar panel On Amazon I recommend 100W panel you should be able to get it for $89.99. Don’t throw away the old panel just yet Cut the old connector off the panel and save it just in case you need to splice it onto the new panel for your set up.

I have a 2019 Ram limited and a 1995 Dodge 2500 diesel. Mirrors up definitely give you a much better view.

Esa Camioneta puede con todo .... RAM es RAM ..... fuerza estilo y belleza

Payload seems to be the Achilles heel of the half ton truck. Going to a 3/4 ton over doubled my payload, going from right on the mark to plenty of wiggle room when towing our travel trailer with 5 of us on board.

It Does make a difference what trim package you have. That is one sharp looking 2020 you have there, nice color too. You have most likely have the better tow package 3.92 gears with the 12,500 towing range, where as I have a 2019 Bighorn, barebones no thrills, payload of 1788 with 3.21 gears and max tow of 8500 lbs. Enjoy the videos and I bet that new property is working out wonderfully!

@scottjohnson8383

2 жыл бұрын

You can get the max-towing package on any trim level, the dealers never stock them though because the fuel economy suffers. You probably get about 20 mpg with the 3.21, versus I get about 13-14 w/ the 3.92 & my BFG KO2s on it. At most.. maybe 5% of half-ton buyers will ever use it for towing anything larger than a 3500 fishing boat, half will never have more than a bags of potting soil from Home Depot in the back. The Limiteds and Longhorns will always have the 3.21 ratio unless special ordered, or if you happen to get the "1" that a large dealer happened to order. I live in a region with 3 million people and mine shipped in from 1400 miles away when I bought it.

Oh I've done that. I had a few 100w solar panels leaning against my garage while I was testing their output and I dropped a hand truck on one. Smashed it clear through the cells. I had just received and unpackaged them an hour prior. Needless to say, I was..... angry.

I got the same truck last week but with ram boxes, sunroof and 22” wheels. Payload is 1,030 lbs 😬

I like the Timbren bump stops .

The question is whether the weight distribution is also moved forward to the front end so its not made lighter reducing steeringand braking function. I think we still need a weight distribution hitch with the typical bars.

I have the 2017 Longhorn, identical to the Limited albeit with saddle leather seats instead of the rockstar style (and I like the thicker saddle seats), although I have the Rambox as well. The comment about “not maintaining the vehicle” was interesting… I’m not sure how many of us will spend $65k on our trucks and skip $50 oil changes. But back to my comments - I’ve had the newer body style a few times as a loaner while having the maintenance that “no one does” on mine - the 2021 I drove felt lighter.. not necessarily in a good way, although didn’t have the Rambox and the tow chains / emergency charger/ air compressor / and toolboxes that I carry back there. My second point, I tow a 6500 lb travel trailer with it with zero issues - although it felt sloppy at first, and it was the Goodyear Wrangler SRA garbage for tires that it came with. I replaced those with E-rated BF Goodrich KO/2s and, although I sacrificed a little more fuel economy than I would have guessed initially, the sloppiness disappeared. The sway & swing was in the thin Goodyear tire sidewalls. Would I toss 2000 lbs of weight in the back? No, but they do handle better than the stock skinny tires on the 20” wheels. Next truck will be a dually for the Mac-daddy fifth wheel, but I’m torn between another Ram versus the Denali Dually.

@scottjohnson8383

2 жыл бұрын

@@Itsa_Mea Sure, it's a pros & cons for me, and for non-standard reasons. If not for the RV, I would be more of a Cadillac CTS kind of person with a cheap truck as a 2nd vehicle, so I start with that as a baseline. 1.) I have about $10k (and growing) of rebate sitting on a GMC BuyPower card that I have had forever. I use it to pay all of the household utilities, etc., and it has been piling up for over a decade (5% on every dollar spent). My wife only drives Subaru Outbacks (we live in the Tahoe area), so the rebate would otherwise never be used. Between the lower price of an SLT or Denali vs the HO version of the Cummins that I would need for the 26k lb toy hauler we are going to order, the difference is about $20k... comparing apples to apples, it's the GMC SLT or Denali vs a fleet truck from Ram in my case (for the same out-of-pocket price). 2.) I have liked the Ram better than the GMC I had (but not the Ram's 4x4 system). However, I am not a fan of Ram dealers. I don't commute, so the 2017 only has about 60,000 miles on it - over 50% of that has been on long RV vacations. I do a trip every summer back to my family home/ranch in South Dakota (2500 miles each way) for family / hunting, etc., and my wife and I do 2 or 3 other trips - each year usually 1500-3500 round trip miles, each. Consequently, I use a lot of different dealerships for service. GMC - easy - if within the first 3 years, they throw me a loaner for the day and tell me to come back later; after 3 years, they rent me a decent newish car for cheap. If warranty, a replacement is always complimentary. My wife is retiring in 2 years and we plan to sell our primary residence and take off for a couple of years with the fifth wheel. For at least 2-3 years, I'll be in a random different dealership for every appointment. Ram - 90% of the time, I am sitting in an uncomfortable waiting area next to the vending machines for hours or wandering around the car lot killing time. Sure they have shuttle service, but not useful to & from the national parks, BLM land, Hipcamps, or Harvest Hosts we frequent. I would trust them to drop me off, but not to pick me up again. GMC was better about the little stuff.. I had some paint rub off the steering wheel audio controls, the mechanic noticed, and swapped them out without my asking. I don't think it ever came back dirty either (and straight back to me if I'm waiting)- always dripping wet and freshly vacuumed. Ram.. greasy finger smudges on the driver window and steering wheel, more than one time, from several different dealers, and always seems disorganized. Horrible? No, but noticeable and seems typical throughout several. GMC is usually GMC/Buick/Cadillac, or GMC/Cadillac, or whatever, so maybe it's the lower volume / higher-priced vehicles and the expectations of the typical customer for those dealerships; versus Ram shares the service bay with the Fiat 500 owners. Quality vs quantity in the service bay? Maybe. After having both, I prefer GMC. 3.) I am in the data business.. and I know where this stuff comes from. Ram or some dealership sold my contact info to every turd-ball "extended warranty" jackal in both hemispheres. It has 60k on it, and I get at least a dozen calls a week from random phone numbers to sell me some BS $1500 warranty. I'm also an MBA.. that is called "profit margin".. Either way, it's a horrible way to treat the premium-vehicle customers. The only way that happens is because Ram wants to make a few extra bucks by selling their customers' data, that's not very cool anymore for a Fortune 500 company. 4.) Not a factor on the one-tons, but only mentioning it for half-tons - the Ram 4x4 is not as effective as the last GMC that I had, it seems like it gets "into trouble" and requires low-range to recover itself much more often than it should - even with the KO2s on it. Living at 7,000 feet above sea level and the obvious inclement weather that comes with, and our normal vacations across Nevada & Utah, one notices such things. The HEMI is better than any GMC gas engine in my opinion, but the power distribution on the 4x4 doesn't seem as even as the GMC, and nothing close to our Subarus. The Outback will submarine under snow drifts that would bury the Ram. Jeep is much better obviously, I've always wondered why they don't just wash/rinse/re-use. 5.) I have missed GMC's electronic sway control. While I do have a decent WDS hitch, the GMC would actively pulsed the brakes when it detected trailer sway, the Ram doesn't do that.. I do a lot of driving across Nevada and Utah.

Great video JD , but I never plan on going any smaller truck than a 3/4ton 4x4 , I really want to stay with 1ton dually 4x4

I know this is not the video I should ask on but I’m thinking of getting the brookstone mid bunk 5th wheel rv was wounding what is your advice on truck to tow it 3/4 ton 1ton single wheel or 1 ton Drw will be getting truck the same time as 5th wheel rv

How did the brakes work on the trailer after you hooked everything up to the Ram.

The four wheel automatic air suspension gives a false sense of proper weight distribution. You'll still need weight distribution bars if you want the front wheels to be most effective for adequate braking and steering. What do you think? Thanks, happy and safe travels 🌲

It drop an extra inch after because it moves slightly we had same truck. Just kinda kick or shake the trailer it should shake out more

I’ve been meaning to ask you about looking into a 398 MBL and I’m looking to purchase one your opinion is this a great quality fifth wheel. I have seen your videos on the one you purchased What is the sidewall construction made of? This will be my last RV. Thanks

So even though the truck levels itself out, all the weight is still in the rear axle of the truck and the front end is still going to be light on the truck right?

Question - what is the limit of the air bags? To me you will have someone hook up to something with a tongue weight of 1800# - just a example - then let the air bags level it out being grossly overloaded but sitting level. Being a retired semi driver I am very familiar with air ride. Just to me seems like a accident waiting to happen.

@danielfisher1204

2 жыл бұрын

@@Itsa_Mea Then there is a built in safety so to speak. Good to know.

If they’re going to make these trucks somewhere above 25k more than a mid size pickup that only has 60 lbs less payload, the half tons should have at least an extra 1,000lbs of payload.

Hook an RV to it and then play a fighting game between the auto level and WDH. I believe you are supposed to let it level then turn it off before hooking up the bars. If kept on, they fight each other. Of course this system is not new, we have a 1995 Mercury Grand marquis that does the exact same thing.

Bye bye little solar panel. To me half ton truck should be half ton cargo capacity after all the vehicle options. I think you can use the vin on the Ram truck web page to find the towing capacity. Nice drive through of the trailer farm. Maybe you could raise the truck first, then put down the trailer Jack. Then dump the air after disconnecting the coupler. Good video, thank you for sharing and have a great day.

If it’s the tow package it should have towing of 11,000lbs, if you have coil suspension I wouldn’t push it to it, me and my dad go camping a lot we have a wildwood lite that is around 6000 pounds and it handles it amazingly with the towing package.

I had a 40 ft trailer for my boat. Towed with it once and sold the trailer. I have the same truck without the air ride… you think you felt your trailer….. let me tell you….😂😂😂

You needed to add the tire setup on that truck is a low profile tire I would imagine those on that truck are a 22 inch rim size you would want a 20 inch or even an 18 inch rim size for the weight

Does your cargo camera work ?

Rams website will show you your specific max trailer weight by the trucks vin

Wonder how much fuel you used to tow that trailer

Oops 😅 nice truck

It is forever a dream to be able to buy these kinda truck😭 Even 30,000$ truck of your country goes like Nrs.8000000 in here

What’s your opinion on greasing your ball?

@BigTruckBigRV

2 жыл бұрын

If it's anything but Aluminum, I would

According to RAM, they also account for 300lbs of passengers in their cargo numbers. So in reality RAMs can do more than they advertise. That doesnt mean you should count on that 100%.

Doh!

Dropping the suspension should have worked just fine to decouple.. I do that as a normal method with my travel trailer, I think your issue was probably uneven terrain and maybe some squishy soil under the trailer jack. It also helps when hooking up as well - I can either wait for the electric jack to lift the trailer and the back of the truck high enough to snap the trunnion bars into place - or jack it a little and lower the truck at the same time - same effect. #2... the kid in the lifted Toyota Tacoma pulls up at the stop light and revving that 4-banger. A few taps of the off-road mode switch and he's admiring the sky through my open sun roof from below my side mirrors.. So you get the best of both worlds, decent fuel economy and a lifted stance when the surface conditions call for it. Get rid of those Goodyear Wranglers for an adequate review though.. they are "skinny jeans" of the truck world.

Ouch to the solar panel.

I have the same truck inside and out, but mine also has ramboxes and split tailgate. The only thing I wish they had done was to offer the 485 HP 6.4 Hemi.

Just bought an F-350 6.7 Diesel. What type of air suspension do you recommend?

@willblackerby9055

2 жыл бұрын

Hi Matt. I have the Air Lift 5000 on my 2019 F-350 SRW. LWB. Crew Cab. I tow a 40ft Toyhauler Dutchmen Voltage. Truck does fine with about 45lbs in the bags. Hope this helps.

@herb7877

2 жыл бұрын

Matt: For what it is worth I would concur with Will Blackerby. I installed them myself on my 2015 and they worked great. really take the porpoising / bucking out when going down wavy roads or train tracks. Leveling up is so easy as well. Well worth the $$ .... I will be installing on my new 2021 soon.

@mattfeatherstone6347

2 жыл бұрын

@@herb7877 Thank you, sir. What type of compressor do you have?

@herb7877

2 жыл бұрын

@@mattfeatherstone6347 I have a standard pancake in my garage. most of the time a small 12v plug into your truck cigarette lighter type, on the road. It just take a very small amount to go from 5# to 35-45#'s . you could even use a hand bicycle type.

@mattfeatherstone6347

2 жыл бұрын

​@@herb7877 Thank you, sir. Hate to be a pain, but is the Air Lift 5000 easy to self-install?

Need a 3/4 ton for that.

My 2012 F150 lariet edition 6.2 Ford powered 6.5 bed 4wd Payload is 1,764LB Max towing receiver hitch 12,000LB Goosneck pulling 14,000LB Airlift Auto leveling airbags I run at 80PSI on bags When loaded Cooper Discovery at3 XLT 10 ply tires run at 80PSI I run the B&W Tow and stow receiver hitch. And the B&W goosneck

@johnirwin1837

2 жыл бұрын

And may have an MSRP of close to my Ram 3500SRW with rear assist suspension , Cummins, Laramie trim.

Don’t you just hate when that happens!

Stupid mistake but guess what? You get to buy another, new, GADGET! Go go gadget, go!

650lbs is closer to 11% of your trailer weight.

Could have been worse JD. Nobody got hurt. We all do dumb. It's the human condition.

@iglapsu88

2 жыл бұрын

You gotta follow manufacture instructions when setting up your WDH.