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Introducing the Mopar Insiders Long Term Ram 1500

Jared B

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I have decided to document the ownership experience of my 2016 Ram 1500. I am keeping it on the other site as this one is focused on the 5th gen trucks and I don't want to dilute that.

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This series will focus on my ownership experience with my 2016 Ram 1500 Sport
Just short of 2 years ago, I was in the market for a full sized pickup to replace my 2012 Mercedes C350 coupe. While I loved that car, it just wasn’t practical for my lifestyle and I needed something with a little more utility.


My 2012 Mercedes C350 Coupe (Mopar Insiders photo)


I should preface this by saying that prior to owning 2 Mercedes in a row I have typically always owned a Ford, GM or a Mopar vehicle. In the beginning of my search for a new truck I was looking at 2016 Ford F150s and while they are nice trucks, I noticed build quality issues with every one I looked at. After about a week of searching I found an F150 that I liked and left a deposit on it. After getting home that night, I kept thinking about it and wasn’t really all that excited about it as one should be when purchasing a new car. It was then that I decided I was going to go look at Ram 1500s the next morning.

The test drive

The next morning I called a salesman that works at a local CDJR dealer that my parents had previously purchased a Grand Cherokee through. I told him that I was looking for a loaded Ram 1500 Sport, he said that they had 2 left which funnily enough were sent over to them by Abbotsford Chrysler the dealer our own forum member @BobbiBigWheels works at and that currently allows us to review their in stock vehicles.


2016 Ram 1500 the day I brought it home (Mopar Insiders photo)


Upon my arrival to the dealership, out front was a Ram 1500 Sport crew cab in Brilliant Black Crystal Pearl. Upon driving the truck I fell in love. I’ve had friends that had 2009 and 2011 Ram 1500s and always liked them, but this is the first time I had been in one of the post 2013 refresh trucks. The Hemi and ZF 8 speed combo is perfect, feeling powerful and refined, the refreshed interior looks great, fit and finish was perfect with high quality materials everywhere. I’d say the interiors of these trucks were best in class even going up against the newer GM twins and Ford F150. The ride was amazing for a full sized truck thanks to Rams unique link coil rear suspension, on all the F150s that I had test drove the rear end would pogo stick over rough roads where the Ram stayed planted and secure. I knew right away that I was buying the Ram.

After returning to the dealer I walked the lot as I really didn’t want another black vehicle and was shown the other Sport they had in stock, a Blue Streak Pearl crew cab. The second I saw it, I knew that was the one, I gave up the front and rear parking sensors that the black one had but that wasn’t a big deal, I HAD to have that colour.


My Window Sticker (Mopar Insiders photo)


This truck had almost everything except for the rear window defroster, Ram Box, air suspension or parking sensors, most were options that I didn’t want or care if I had anyways but what is important is that it had everything I was looking for. Sticker price was $64,440 Canadian, with rebates and negotiation I got them down to $49,500 and drove off the lot in my new truck on the spot. My first order of business was to drive my new truck straight to the Ford dealer and get my deposit back, when they asked why I pointed right at my new Ram sitting proudly outfront the dealer.


2016 Ram 1500 – How it looks currently (Mopar Insiders photo)


(In this series I will be talking about the past 2 years of ownership as well as whats to come, maintenance, modifications both present and future, off roading with it, taking it to the dragstrip etc. Stay tuned as there is a lot more to come.)
 

Jared B

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Mopar Insiders long term Ram 1500 part 2

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Mopar Insiders Long Term Ram 1500 (Mopar Insiders photo)​

My maintenance history, and warranty issues I've had addressed

Last week

I introduced you to the Mopar Insiders long term Ram 1500, my 2016 Ram 1500 Sport crew cab 4×4. This week I will take you through the warranty issues and maintenance that the truck has required in the past 22 months.

Warranty

While my truck hasn’t been absolutely perfect, there have been a few warranty issues that have come up. All of these issues have been relatively minor and were easily and quicky dealt with by my local dealers service department.
  1. Around the 1000km mark, while sitting in the passenger seat while letting my brother drive my truck I noticed an air leak around the passenger front door area. The dealer replaced the weatherstrip and the issue has been gone since.
  2. Around the 5000km mark, the drivers front window came off the track on 2 separate occasions when trying to use it in cold temperatures, after the second time the dealer replaced the window regulator and the issue has not come back.
  3. The cruise control started working intermittently around 8000km, the dealer replaced the cruise contol buttons on the steering wheel and it hasn’t been an issue since.
One issue that I have had with the truck since new and still has not been resolved is a slight vibration at highway speeds as if you are driving on a square wheel. The truck has been in a few times for it and rebalancing the tires seems to move the speed around that it happens at. I did have a set of 22 inch SRT-10 wheels on the truck for awhile and the vibration went away. I have since put the stock 20s back on and replaced the Goodyear tires that came with the truck with load range e BFGoodrich KO2’s. The vibration is back and more pronounced with the load range e tires. I am planning to have the tires road force balanced and will report back if that solves the issue. If not I believe that one or more of the wheels was made out of round and will then be taking it up with the dealer.

Maintenance


Blackstone Labs oil analysis report (Mopar Insiders)

With only 33k kms on the clock, maintenance so far has been pretty light. Even though FCA says that you can go 1 year or 16k kms between oil changes I don’t push mine nearly that far. At 5500kms I had the first oil change done by the selling dealer and switched to synthetic, total cost taxes in was $154.17. After that I decided to start doing the oil changes myself, at 12,500km I did another oil change using Pennzoil Platinum Synthetic 5w-20 and a Mobil 1 synthetic oil filter. At 20,000kms I did a combustion and fuel system cleaning using Seafoam engine cleaner. I also changed the oil again this time using Pennzoil Ultra Platinum Synthetic 5w-20 and used a larger Mobil 1 synthetic oil filter for a 2010 Hemi Ram. At this time I also rotated the tires and lubed all the caliper slide pins. When the 30,000km mark hit I again changed the oil with Pennzoil Ultra Platinum 5w-20 and used the larger Mobil 1 oil filter. I also sent an oil sample off to Blackstone Labs to see how the oil looked after a 10k km interval and to get an idea as to how my engine was wearing. Everything looks good and I will continue with a 10k km interval and again send a sample out when I hit the 60k km mark.

For those that didn’t know Ram switched to a smaller oil filter in 2013 for the 5.7 Hemi. After researching it I found that the larger filter from a 2009-2012 Ram will work on the later trucks with no issue. I have now been running the larger filters for the last 2 oil changes with no problems and I would definitely recommend it to anyone that wants to stretch their oil change intervals.

Stay tuned to Mopar Insiders for all the updates relating for our long term Ram 1500, next week we will go into modifications that have been performed on the vehicle. Check out our Forums section for more great content.
 

devildodge

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Thanks for this @Jared B. Have been following www.moparinsiders.com and these articles will help alot of people as these start to be traded in for 5th Gen Rams and people take advantage of a nice used vehicle to tide them over til they get a new generation of Ram trucks.
 

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