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2010 Motor Trend Award
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The Hardest-Working Truck in Tow Business |  |
The 2010 RAM Heavy Duty truck has won Motor Trend's coveted Truck of the Year title. The RAM 2500's platform is similar to last year's, yet has undergone significant upgrades and enhancements that improve ride, handling, and noise levels. It uses a hydroformed, fully boxed frame, with coil springs in front and a live-axle, leaf-spring rear. There's no shortage of variety throughout the truck line, with a regular cab, Mega Cab, and a real crew cab, replacing the smallish Quad Cab option in the previous Ram. There are choices from single or dual rear wheel setups, rear drive or two four-wheel-drive systems, short or long bed, three different axle ratios, and four trim levels. There's also the awesome Power Wagon, a Hemi-powered 2500 crew cab with 4.56:1 gears, electronic locking diffs, electronically disconnecting front anti-roll bar, skidplates, heavy-duty battery and alternator, and winch. |  |
 The standard 5.7-liter Hemi V8 delivers 383 hp at 5600 rpm and 400 lb-ft of torque at 4000 rpm. The Hemi was redesigned for 2009, with variable valve timing (VVT), increased compression, a new active intake manifold with long runners for low-end torque and short runners for high-rpm power, improved cylinder-head flow, and low-restriction exhaust and induction systems. This V8 comes standard with the heavy-duty, five-speed automatic with tow-haul capability to minimize gear hunting while towing heavy loads and provide automatic downshifts when decelerating.  The 2010 Ram HD is also available with the 6.7-liter Cummins turbodiesel engine, packing 350 hp at 3000 rpm and a robust 650 lb-ft of torque at 1500 rpm. The 6.7-liter diesel option offers a choice of either a six-speed manual transmission or a six-speed automatic. The six-speed manual has an ultralow 5.94:1 first-gear ratio for low-speed, heavy hauling. Two transfer cases are available for four-wheel-drive Rams, the NV 271 manual unit standard on ST and Power Wagon models, and an electric NV 273 shift-on-the-fly transfer case, standard on SLT and Laramie models. The Cummins engine not only provides gobs of power, but is surprisingly quiet doing it.  Maximum towing capacity for the Ram 3500 is 17,500 pounds. A coil-spring suspension setup is used up front, while the multileaf spring design is maintained in the rear for heavy-duty capability. And as the testers at this year's Truck of the Year discovered, towing a large boat is very easy with the Ram. Whether you carry your weight in a trailer or your cargo box, Ram Heavy Duty shows mastery of towing and hauling. The interior materials and design are much nicer than in the past, and that improvement makes this cabin the best in its class. The strategically added sound deadening makes it incredibly quiet too. You basically have to stand outside the truck while it's running, to hear the diesel. The Ram is quieter, more comfortable and people-friendly than before without sacrificing its considerable capability. The Ram Heavy Duty is so good, it's caused the other manufacturers to change their plans. So good that, when it came time to vote, the judges at Motor Trend unanimously chose it as 2010's Truck of the Year. *Information from MotorTrend.com Jan 2010 |