What's Ted's new soon to be deleted new Dodge going to do to me?
Well, given that it looks like I can fix this thing, there will be no new Dodge in my future. I'm glad that I can fix it, even though it'll be about $2,500 in parts to do it right. But, it'll be done right. I'll be curious to see if this was also the cause of my oil consumption and some of the oil smoke I was getting that looked to be from the one dead cylinder. There are some injector failure modes where that can happen, and when I swapped the injectors between #2 and #4 it didn't smoke near as much. So, we'll see. My luck may prevail.
But, I did go by the Dodge dealer to check out some of the new ones. Honestly, I'm not as impressed with them in person as I was with my 2004. There are some minor things. For example, I think they screwed up the towing mirrors. If you look at them compared to the 2004 I used to have, the blind spot mirror got much bigger, and I don't like the picture that goes with it. They ditched the basic oil pressure and coolant temp gauges. You can get those on the digital display, but the only gauges are tach, speedo, fuel, and DEF. Don't like that.
Too quiet, too smooth. Doesn't seem like a Cummins. Even when you get on it you can barely hear the Cummins sound. Of course, a lot of that can be fixed, but you should know your engine's running in one of these.
It also felt slower than my 2004 did, even when getting on it. For having another 45 HP and 200 lb-ft of torque, it was unimpressive. Maybe this has to do with computer programming plus the summer heat, but it surprised me how slow it felt. I never wanted for more power in my 2004, but this thing didn't feel as fast as I thought it should, and definitely not as torquey. The automatic tended to want to downshift easily, too, which annoyed me. Of course I wouldn't buy an automatic, but they didn't have any manuals on the lot. I'd be curious how the manual (which on paper has less power and torque than the automatic version) feels to drive.
The things I liked better than the 2004: the "normal" sized crew cab rather than the shrunken crew-cab they had in 2003-2011. I think that's it.
I remember test driving one of these in 2004 and being really impressed. I loved how it drove, it was comfortable, the engine was powerful and felt it. Really, there was nothing that I could complain about. Not true in 2017. Some of that is because I have some perhaps unusual things I look for, but people who buy the Cummins buy it in part because it's supposed to be louder and vibrate more than the PowerStroke and Duramax. I got in my 7-cylinder F-350 to drive home after that test drive and, while it felt slower (duh, it was running on 7), I liked driving it more than the new Dodge.
Now as to the emissions, interesting points from
@mtuomi and I'll agree that NOx are bad. Contribute to asthma and all kinds of other unpleasantries. On any brand new new truck I wouldn't be deleting anything because of the warranty aspects, so I'd let the reliability play out. That also gets some more years to find out what the weak spots are. On the 6.0L, the EGR is a major weak spot. The EGR valve is after the cooler (which uses engine coolant). On the 6.0Ls the valves will frequently stick because the exhaust gasses get too cold and soot the thing up (I believe Ford fixed this on the 6.7 by putting the valve on the hot side), and then the cooler itself will tend to leak, pouring coolant into the engine. So on the 6.0Ls, the EGR does contribute significantly to a lack of reliability. That's why EGR deletes are so popular on them.
I don't know enough about EGRs on other trucks. I haven't heard of the same issues on the Duramax or Cummins engines, but I also haven't investigated on those. My Cummins was bought new and only driven 108,000 miles in 2 years (now has 185k on it - I sold it to a friend) never had any issues and I never touched anything on it. Just changed fluids. Sold it with the original tires and brake pads that it came with the day I bought it. I guess I changed the serpentine belt around 100k.
