My friend just bought a 2001 Ram 3500 V10

[summit1000]

On Saturday, my friend and I made the long drive out to Grande Prairie so that he could go look at a 2001 Ram 3500 V10, 4x4, dually. 297,000 km's on it, had the transmission rebuilt 20,000 km's ago, and has all new shocks. The alternator was also replaced literally last week. My friend was the one how was buying it and I offered to drive out with him because he is buying the truck that will also be towing around my sled, so making the drive was the least I could do. It isn't the nicest looking truck on the road, but mechanically it seems solid. It has a little bit of exterior damage and some rust on the front fender, very close to the door is causing a ton of wind noise, but we know some body shop people that should be able to fix it It was only $3,000. And everyone bitches about fuel economy, but driving from Grande Prairie to Edmonton it got 20L/100km's. I didn't think that was bad considering that is about the same as what my fully built 5.7L TBI gets. My friend figures that if he can make it last at least one season of sledding without blowing up, it wasn't a bad investment. All in all, I'm pretty impressed with it. Although I would've expected a bit more power, but I guess that is because I'm used to my significantly lighter, and more slightly more powerful '95 K1500.

 

[Nytroman]

I have a 1998 2500 with the V10, and yes when driven at speed limits it will get similar miledge to a 1/2ton with say a 5.3 liter. Probably comparable to a 5.7 or 6liter. When loaded it burns a bit more than my old duramax but with the price of diesel right now probably not much worse $ wise.
It does seem to burn as much idling around town as it does on the highway, kinda call it hrs per gallan not miles per gallon. And also was surprised of its lacking power, but I only drive it a couple thousand k per year so I dont really care, I do like the no investment portion of it as well, one small easy payment for the title.

 

[summit1000]

I have a 1998 2500 with the V10, and yes when driven at speed limits it will get similar miledge to a 1/2ton with say a 5.3 liter. Probably comparable to a 5.7 or 6liter. When loaded it burns a bit more than my old duramax but with the price of diesel right now probably not much worse $ wise.
It does seem to burn as much idling around town as it does on the highway, kinda call it hrs per gallan not miles per gallon. And also was surprised of its lacking power, but I only drive it a couple thousand k per year so I dont really care, I do like the no investment portion of it as well, one small easy payment for the title.

Yeah, and I figure for his purposes, fuel economy isn't a huge concern. We need something that feels like it can safely tow a 28 foot snowmobile trailer with four or five sleds in it, and maybe even one in the box of the truck (I'll have to work out if this exceeds its weight rating our not) but it seemed a hell of a lot better than the 2500HD with the 6.0L Vortec we looked at about a month ago. And being that it is almost 500 km's from Grande Prairie to Edmonton, we got to do a lot of driving in the truck to see what it was like. And other than I was expecting more power and the wind noise is deafening, all seemed good. Next year he is thinking that he might sell this truck and look at getting a diesel. This year, that just wasn't in the cards. Also, if the Ram 1500 Eco Diesel turns out to be a good truck, he might consider one of those. And I'm going to guess that it burns as much idling around town because it probably takes a lot of fuel to keep a V10 idling.