Thread: Switch to Dodge RAM 2500...please talk me out of it!

Originally Posted by plusnq

Has anyone seen a gvm upgrade for a Discovery 4? I’ve never seen one although a few people have mentioned it .

The only way I can see that happening is by replacing the suspension & brake components with those for the armoured D4.

Originally Posted by RoverLander

I love driving my Disco but I'm seriously considering swapping to a Dodge RAM 2500.

We tow a 20 foot off road caravan regularly as part of our grey nomad travels. The van gets close to the 3500kg limit when loaded. We are struggling with weights and in particular the rear axle load. The vans ball weight is 280kg. The car has 2 push bikes on the roof, a 40l fridge, 100 ah battery, light weight chairs, basic toolbox and us onboard.

We want to add a Porta Boat or canoes but just cant do it with the weight limitations.

The D4 tows the van with no wobble problems and with plenty of power. Its only the weight issue that has prompted the possibility of swapping to the Dodge RAM.

Any thoughts? Happy to be talked out of this possibly big mistake.

I Lived in San Antonio TX for a brief period in the early 2000's. I had the displeasure of having a (then) current model Dodge RAM (2003, 3500) as a company provided car. Here is a summary of ownership

The Good.

• Torque was awesome (5.9 litre cummins v8 IIRC)
• No reliability problems (never stopped)
• Cruising was decent the engine just ticked over at highway speeds
• Space.... literally I am pretty sure you could fit the universe in there several times

The Bad.

• Size, you have very poor visibility. I am tall (6ft4) and I couldn't really get a grasp of where the corners of the car sat. In Texas it is not a huge problem because parking spaces, roads etc are all BIG. When I took a road trip to California where the size of everything was still large, but not mid-west big it felt too large
• Fuel economy was really bad, regularly getting single digit miles per gallon in traffic.
• Build quality.. I am pretty sure it was not actually built or assembled. Parts would randomly fall off if the road was not perfectly smooth. Driving back roads etc where it was gravel didn't to the car any favors. The good news was that once everything fell off it was okay.
• Uncomfortable seats.
• You are automatically a di*k head for driving one. I only really felt this when I got to CA and people judged the book by it's cover (TX plates on a RAM). I would expect that some of those same stereo types would play in Australia.
• Long wheelbase is both a blessing and a curse... blessing when on the road. A nightmare off road (ramp over).

Putting these points into context as a 3 x defender owner. All the bad points about Land Rover ownership get amplified by Dodge. Taking into account that this is using ownership in their home markets not a backwater like Australia (market wise). The dealers network was always happy to help, but you had to fight to get basic warranty work done when parts fell off "you drove it wrong".. the worse of all is a number of plastic parts fell down onto the exhaust and it was lucky to not cause a fire. These of course are all my fault and the factory was perfect.

I can't comment on what the current models are like, but my experience of Dodge as a manufacturer leaves much to be desired. It is possible for a vendor to improve or get worse, but I would be highly skeptical of paying any money to Dodge. Perhaps you can convince them to give you the car on a 5 year long term test drive (free)? That might be the best way to own a Dodge.

I've recently been spending some time in an Iveco Daily 4x4 dual cab. That might be a good alternative to the Dodge?