Guffman, our 2020 Ram 2500 Laramie long-termer, has been making up for lost time by remaining in almost perpetual motion since his midsummer arrival, including a golf outing to northern Michigan and numerous trips to cabins. We therefore struggled to find a moment to schedule replacement of the sliding rear window we knocked out while hauling a grill north. After copious confusion and finger pointing between our dealer (who doesn’t “do windows”) and a local glass shop, FCA ended up installing the $416.56 part for us at HQ.
That fixed, we put those auto-leveling rear air springs to a serious test. Record water levels have caused Lake Huron to breach a stretch of seawall at my summer place. Doubling its size to rectify the problem required us to mix 128 60-pound bags of ready-mix concrete beachside because a steep bank puts the project out of reach of any cement truck’s delivery chute. That’s two 3,840-pound pallets of cement. And yes, each trip slightly exceeded the gross rear axle weight limit of 6,000 pounds. But truck customers are known to do this, and our Ram 2500 shouldered the extra load with ease.
Each was conveniently loaded via forklift, and the manual unloading was eased slightly by our recent addition of a $365 Mopar corner bed step, which would have been included in a $745 Bed Utility Group that replaced our truck’s $495 Bed Convenience Group.
Two tons of concrete smoothed Guffman’s ride right out, though at every stop the dash info screen reminded me, “Air Suspension Adjustment Limited Due to Payload.” The tall load also demanded judicious slowing for turns, but Guffman never grumbled.
Well, he grumbled a bit when his diesel exhaust fluid tank neared empty en route to that golf outing, causing a momentary panic and some improvisation when a small-town fuel stop didn’t sell the handy DEF containers with built-in hoses. Subsequent DEF refills have gone way smoother, and to date our consumption seems to be averaging around 900 miles per $10 gallon of DEF. Next, our intrepid road warrior is scheduled for separate adventures to Florida and South Carolina.
