22 Ram 5500 reviews

[Great White North Eh]

Hahaha no "military grade aluminum" ford crap going down here. Skirts, tailboard and deck are all 1/4" 5053, cabinet is 3/16", frame rails are 4" x 2" x 1/4" and crossmembers are 2.5" square 3/16" wall. Pretty common thing up here in Canada with guys running aluminum beds, they just hold up so much better to the elements, and i am doneeee with steel decks after this last 5000$+ coating job rusting after a year, by rusting i should clairify just in spots.... its not awful but my OCD sees it as massive gross rust spots. As for frame rails on trucks that'll be a none issue, for as long as i am running my welding business ill always be buying cab and chassis which are standard dimensionally as long as you stay with a 60" C/A, so this bed would be plug and play on any CC. As for material costs, just for aluminum i am at 3k right now and thats for the back half of the deck, completed id imagine it'll be close to 7ish.

Iam copying this ACE deck to a tee that they just finished for a guy, know the owner, they do pretty stellar work, But you'll pay 30k + for one. only thing i am going to line'x though is the top deck and fenders, for now anyway.

yea with the weight savings of this deck vs steel, and some of our trailering requirements changing i am borderline in 3500 DRW territory. Just unsure if the mpg increase/ride quality improvement is worth the change vs having that reserve capacity. She cruises quite nicely on the highway but were still at 2000 RPM at 110kmh. Just wondering if between the de-rated cummins and 3.73s we'd see some improvement. If i remember correctly i was seeing 16 avg with my last personal 18 limited dually. We really don't hate the ride of the 5500 its certainly tolerable. It'll change a bit when we put the aluminum deck on for sure but may be negligible. We looked into liquid spring, and keldermen...... and while super nice kits its basically 10k cdn to get into one, and we only keep trucks 2-3 years so the justification just wasn't there. That and id imagine you'd almost never get your money back out of it during re-sale.

That’s a nice looking bed for sure. Ya taking a 30+% hit on aftermarket up here is a kick in the nads. My dream would be to build a aluminum farm bale handler deck……someday.

 

[Pressure_welder]

sorry i shouldve said.... that Ace deck to buy is over 30,000$ as it sits. You can build one far cheaper of course but they are alot of work and there is somthing to be said for not having to do the design work on the go. Once you've built enough decks though you sorta know where things need to be. The worst part of the build hands down is the cabinet. If you were just building a skirted deck that'd go relatively quick. That bale bed would be a nice build though!

On another note Ram dealers are hurting here right now there lots are PACKED with half tons and HD's. No one is really biting on the 110,000$ + trucks right now around here.... i think they had a 23 limited dually listed for almost 118,000$. Even some of the high end half tons are sitting at 90, which is utterly mind boggling for essentially a glorified car. Our local Ford dealer is more expensive yet!

 

[Great White North Eh]

Ya I think the dude inking the MSRP numbers is drinking on the job.

 

[Pressure_welder]

well a dealership ive used in the past got back to me and got damn close to what i am paying now for on my 5500, for what would be a 24' 3500 drw chassis cab Laramie crystal granite, with the level 2 pkg comes with the 12" screen, digital cluster, new mirrors, and the few items my last dealership forgot. Also was able to put in tire pressure sensors and monitoring system which was nice. Haven't pulled the trigger quite yet but i THINK i am close to doing so. I believe between trailering requirements changing, and going to this aluminum welding bed, a 5500 has just become overkill. Decisions, Decisions. I LOVE this 5500, but there's a small part of me that likes the thought of going back to a 17" wheel with normal tires, and 3.73's.

iam just doing the basic math here, granted i dont know how a 3500 chassis cab with 3.73s the detuned engine would compare to say my last 2019 GMC denali dually that i had for a welding truck before this 5550. But that thing with a fully outfitted welding skid in the box would average 15-16L per 100KM highway/town mix, and about 12 on the highway best conditions. My 5500 gets about 21-22 L/per 100 average. and about 16.5 L per 100KM on the highway absolute best case scenerio.

so if this 3500 chassis cab w/ 3.73s realized somewhat close to the same fuel economy as that loaded up denali...... based on our current fuel prices, its looking "roughly" like 10.20$ savings per 100KM, and about 91.80$ savings per tank as i am seeing about 900KM per tank range on this 5500, and about 367$ savings per month as iam at about 1 tank a week right now. Even if that was +/- 50$ still makes a fella think a bit more