First Diesel

[Kevin Mienke]

I was forced to buy a new (used) daily driver. Momma was in a serious accident about a week ago. She was treated and released at the hospital and is still recovering from the blunt force injuries but she'll be fine. Unfortunately, our 2004 truck was a complete loss. She was hit from behind(while stopped) by a Ram 2500 with cummins diesel traveling at approximately 60 mph. The Ram was pulling an empty horse trailer and sustained very minor damage.
To replace our loss, we looked at the Hemi ram 1500 and 2500 but ultimately decided to wrap ourselves in a 2004 Ram 2500 4x4 with a cummins diesel, exactly like the one that rear ended momma. It has only 38.000 miles and is show room clean.
I have never owned a diesel and will have the dealership service it, but nonetheless need to educate myself on the 5.9 diesel. Any advice on care and maintenance would be appreciated.

[Tom Petroff]

Kevin,
Glad to hear "momma" will be fine!
You will like the diesel a lot.
For me it's the only way to go. Read your owners manual supplement,and it will help a lot. I'm sure you allready know enough with your background.
Do however use fuel anti-gel additive regularly in the winter.
I like "Power Service" products my-self. Regardless of what the book say's about the fuel filter heater,you can have problems without the treatment.
Keep good battery's and plug in when necessary.
You will never want to go back to gas.
TGP

[Charles Talbert]

Speaking of plugging in

I'll share this, before we wrapped up the grading business, I plugged my service truck engine heater up at the shop each afternoon during the winter months. That circuit was on a timer that was set to come on 1 hour before cranking time, thus the heater was only on for that 1 hour. Engine always cranked like July as long as temps got no lower than say 20 degrees. If extreme cold such as low teens or single digits were predicted, I bumped the timer up to 2 hours, always worked great. Doing it this way saves a lot on your electric bill as these heaters are quite costly to operate if you just plug in & forget it.

[MoparNorm]

Kevin!
Glad to hear that momma is OK.
You'll love the Cummins. Like Tom said, you'll never go back to gas.
Watch the brakes, pads are cheaper than rotors and the rotors are a big bucks item if you let the pads wear too far. I'm running ceramic pads both front and rear, they last considerably longer than the Mopar Valueline semi-metallic pads.
MN

[JimmieD]

Wow, Somebody up there is watching out for you kids! A miracle to even be alive from 3 1/2 tons of Dodge hitting her at 60mph! Don't sign off on the medical just because she feels better. Long term effects take months or years to show up and the insurance companies try their hardest to get you to cash out on medical. Enjoy your new truck, and a GREAT CHOICE!!!