RAM 2500 Cummins DIESEL vs GAS (6.4 Hemi) | Which Engine Should you Buy?
Today we are back with the age-old question: do you buy a gas pickup truck, or should you buy the diesel pickup truck? That is what we’re talking about today,. We are lucky enough to have a Ram 2500 with the 6-4 Hemi, which is actually my own truck 2022 Ram 2500 Power Wagon and on my left here we have a 2023 Ram 2500 with the infamous 6 7 Cummins turbo diesel engine, and I figured I’d give You guys my opinions about if a gas or diesel engine is your best option so now that the price of diesel has kind of Fallen back to Earth here for the last couple months, I figured this would probably Intrigue more people to look at potentially having the Diesel option, if they’re looking at buying a new pickup truck or a used pickup truck, because they are no longer going to be having to pay an arm and a leg to fill up their diesel pickup truck, and hopefully it stays that way. So I am a diesel mechanic by trade and I thought I would share my opinions on the modern diesel engine and I use the term modern diesel engine because gone are the days of the old school bulletproof reliable diesel engines.
They don’t exist anymore. As of let’s say 2012, when the government mandated scr systems on these things, the emission systems are making these Modern Diesel engines somewhat unreliable, and I think there is a discussion to be had if you guys are looking at buying one, because it is important. So, let’s start with the very obvious so with a diesel engine, you’re gon na be paying anywhere from 10 to 14 000 extra than what you would with a normal Base gas model engine and with that added cost comes a better performing engine the diesel engine. This goes for any manufacturer, Chevy Ford RAM, you are going to get a better performing engine and with that performance comes better Towing experience and what I think it’s kind of caught up in the numbers is how well a diesel engine tows, because we’ve seen the past Couple years that in HD gas engine can tow quite a bit, so this is a 6′ 4 Hemi, like I mentioned, and a properly equipped 6-4 Hemi truck can tow north of 17 000 pounds on paper now. Obviously, this truck can also tow 17 000 pounds.
In fact, a Cummins can tow about 20 000 pounds in a ramp 2500, but I think what gets lost is the fact that, yes, both trucks can tow 17 000 pounds, but this Cummins will tow it significantly easier, and you know that goes down to even like 12, 000 pounds. If you are Towing, you know twelve thousand thirteen thousand pounds pretty consistently a Cummins. A diesel engine will make your life significantly easier when it comes to Towing, because these engines just tow so much better than a gas engine. And it’s not to say gas engine can’t do it, but a diesel engine is a far superior towing engine in every category without a doubt now, maybe just let me back up a little bit because there’s nothing wrong with an HD gas engine. They are not poor.
Towing engines, they just don’t tow as well as the diesel and I’m sure most you guys already know that there’s nothing wrong with an engine like the 6-4 Hemi. It will tow things just fine, but if you’re looking for the best performance, you cannot beat the diesel option in terms of Towing performance. Now, personally, if I was Towing, you know 12 000, 13, 14 000 pounds pretty consistently. I would probably want to pay that extra premium and get the diesel. I think it’s worth it at that point points.
However, if you’re someone that let’s say owns, I don’t know a fifteen thousand pound, pretty large fifth wheel camper and you tow it five times a year six times a year. There is absolutely nothing wrong with going with the gas engine. It will tow that thing. Just fine, it just won’t tow it as well as the diesel you’re not going to get as good fuel mileage you’re going to be revving a lot more. The truck is going to struggle a lot more, but it will do it when it comes to price versus performance.
You are paying for extra Towing performance and you will get it with the diesel. The golden question is: is that extra price worth it to you guys to have that extra Towing, and I think it all depends on what you’re planning on using the truck for another thing to consider is fuel economy between these two types of engines? I know they’re HD trucks, fuel economy really shouldn’t come into play, but I think in the real world people still are a little bit. You know interested in fuel economy numbers even in HD trucks, so with a diesel it’ll be by by far more efficient diesel engines. They just have higher thermal efficiency, basically meaning that they can take more of the chemical energy in the fuel and transfer it to mechanical energy, much better than a gas engine.
Also diesel, as a fuel, actually has more energy in it than gasoline does so because of those two reasons and a number of other ones, your diesel engine is going to be quite a bit more efficient and it’s going to be way more efficient when you’re towing. That’S a big one, because if you plan on towing a lot with your gas engine, you are not going to be passing very many fuel stations, HD gas engines, love to drink fuel when they’re Towing, probably looking at anywhere like 30 liters per 100k with a decent Load behind it, which is quite a lot of fuel now. Thirdly – and I think this is a really really big – one – is reliability, like I touched on earlier in the article gone, are the days of these super reliable diesel engines that can run half a million miles with relatively no issues. They don’t exist anymore and in fact, your gas engines are probably a much more reliable option than a modern diesel engine. Now myself, as a technician um, I work on a ton of these Legends every day and without a doubt, probably 50 of all of our work is just after treatment issues um, you know it’s these after treatment systems are highly complex, highly sensitive, and yet they are Exposed to incredible heat, High pressures and that just fuels things to go wrong and when they go wrong, it’s usually expensive and oftentimes.
It’S very hard to diagnose, because there are a lot of calculated values in these emission systems. So, for example, if there’s a calculated value that does not correlate with what the uh, the ECU is expecting to see, It’ll throw a check engine light, it’ll throw a coat and we have to go in there with computers and figure out. What exactly is going on? Why the engine through that code, what sensors could be bad? Is there any bad wiring?
Has a system failed and it’s just? You can run yourself into a lot of issues with these Modern Diesel engines, so it does seem like the gas engine is going to be. The more reliable option – and it does seem kind of odd to say that I don’t think in terms of longevity. I still feel like the diesel is going to outlast a gas engine in general, but in terms of like pure reliability going down the road having faith that your engine is not going to derate, you I feel, like the reliability, is much more with the gas engine. These days and the diesel option can derate.
So what do I mean by d-read so with the emission systems? If there is a check engine light thrown for an emission code or even an actual engine code, there can be a 10 d-rate, a 25 D rate, a 50 D rate, as well as even speed D rates that will derate the truck to only like 10 kilometers. An hour and there’s no other way to get around it other than plugging into with a computer and either clearing the codes or figuring out what is going on, and so that is kind of the Dilemma when it comes to diesel engines, because these d-rate codes can Happen at any time anywhere any place and we get a lot of trucks just towed in, because there’s check engine lights and they can’t go faster than 10 kilometers an hour. So these are all just things that you guys may want to consider when you are looking at either buying a diesel or a gasoline engine. And it’s not to say that your diesel is going to derate every day.
But it is more than likely throughout the life of owning a modern diesel engine, you will have to deal with some kind of emission related issue. Another big factor to think about is your driving habits. So if you were driving five miles to working back 10 miles to work and back a modern diesel, engine is probably not what you are looking for. Reason being is because these diesel engines they like to get hot and run hard, their emission systems love to get hot and they love to be run hard. And if they don’t, you are simply going to shorten the life of both the engine and the emission systems, and you are most likely going to have to deal with a lot of again emission related issues, whereas the gas engine you are not.
There are zero emissions to really worry about and if you’re just driving short distances, I would highly recommend that you guys look at getting a gas engine, because you will just not have to deal with as many issues with this gas engine. Another factor to consider kind of goes with driving habits is idle time. If you know you’re going to be idling quite a bit, I would recommend you stay away from the diesel, because a diesel engine does not like to idle. It causes quite a bit of problems with the engine itself, you’ll get Turbo slobber and then the emissions they when you idle, you create a lot of soot and so you’ll end up. Clogging your DPF filters much quicker and your EGR will just get all full of soot, possibly clog.
Your EGR cooler EGR valve can get slided up, there’s just a lot of issues when it comes to idling with these diesel engines. So if you know you’re going to be idling a lot, a gas engine is probably the best option and you shouldn’t really idle your gas engine either. It will probably shorten the life of it, but it’s not going to be as detrimental as idling a modern diesel engine. So just another thing to consider now, finally, is your payload capacity and gas engines in the HD trucks always are going to have a higher payload capacity. Why?
Because? Well, their engines weigh less so the Cummins engine in this truck alone weighs about 1100 pounds. So that is going to affect your total payload that you can actually put inside the truck or in the bed, whereas the gas engine has a much lighter engine in the front, so it’s going to increase the available payload. So, if you’re, looking at putting a truck bed camper, some tool boxes in the back or even like a service body going with an HD gas engine, may give you that added payload in order to fit all that stuff in there. So that’s something to consider as well.
If you guys are looking for payload options at the end of the day, I think the biggest factor is what you you are going to be using the truck for previously, and I guess still probably today. I think the diesel engine option is the sexier option. It’S always viewed as the more powerful and the upper class engine if you will – and there may be something to that, but I think nowadays more so I think these are just two very quality engine options for different applications, and it just really depends on what you Guys are planning to use the trucks for, if you’re planning on towing a ton and heavy. Clearly, the diesel is probably your best option, whereas if you are looking to tow every now and again, a big camper, you want some good payload. But yet you don’t want to have to really worry about emission systems.
The gas engine is going to be by far the best engine option for you. So I think it comes down to what you need and if you guys are looking at a diesel option, I would highly recommend you guys do a little bit of research in terms of the emission systems understand what a regen is. A passive region versus a forced regen, because these are things that are going to help preserve the life of your engine as well as the after treatment system. Well, those are the criteria that I personally would kind of look at if I was going to be either buying a diesel or a gas. Obviously I own a gas engine and it’s not necessarily because I thought it was a better engine for me, even though it probably is it’s because well, I wanted a power wagon and it only comes with the 64 Hemi.
So that’s what I end up getting but, like I said it’s probably honestly, the better engine choice for me and for what I do but anyways, if you guys have any questions, comments, feel free to drop a comment down below I’ll answer them. As best as I can, if you did like the article, don’t forget to leave that thumbs up and if you like, cool stuff like this, don’t forget to subscribe, because we’d love to have you on board anyways enough of me, I’m going home and we’ll see in The next freaking article.