Gallowbraid
Member
- Joined
- Aug 24, 2024
- Messages
- 11
- Reaction score
- 23
- Points
- 3
- Age
- 43
Picked up a 2019 Ram 1500 Laramie a few months ago after coming from a long line of 4WD vehicles that I've modified heavily for camping and off road exploring. Over this past week I had a chance to get up into the Cherokee National Forest in Tennessee to do some camping and exploring on the forest service roads. Other than ensuring the 4WD system worked during my test drive, this was the first time I'd gotten a chance to really use it. In navigating some of the steep descents in the NF I wanted to save the brakes and prevent any brake fade so I dropped the truck into 4WD low and used the gear limiting option to, initially, limit the truck to 3rd gear. This did not have the desired result. The truck would hold a low speed and then seemingly drop into neutral causing the truck to accelerate for a moment before dropping back into gear and slowing down. If I selected 4th or 5th gear as the highest limited gear the truck would do what I was expecting it to do which was use the transmission/transfer case to maintain a slow and steady decent speed.
Since this only happened in the lower gears (3rd or below) I have to assume this is a design or safety feature of the 8 speed transmission and not a malfunction. In reading the manual I don't see anything listed about using low range and the gear limiting to slow the vehicle, just the use of the downhill decent control which my truck isn't equipped with (and which uses the brakes, defeating the purpose of preventing brake fade). In any of my past vehicles: F150s, Rangers, Tacomas, Wranglers, 4Runners, a Sequoia and an F250, I could place them in 4lo and drop as low as 1st gear to use the gearing to maintain a downhill speed. Can anyone confirm this is just how the 8 speed transmission works in the Ram?
Since this only happened in the lower gears (3rd or below) I have to assume this is a design or safety feature of the 8 speed transmission and not a malfunction. In reading the manual I don't see anything listed about using low range and the gear limiting to slow the vehicle, just the use of the downhill decent control which my truck isn't equipped with (and which uses the brakes, defeating the purpose of preventing brake fade). In any of my past vehicles: F150s, Rangers, Tacomas, Wranglers, 4Runners, a Sequoia and an F250, I could place them in 4lo and drop as low as 1st gear to use the gearing to maintain a downhill speed. Can anyone confirm this is just how the 8 speed transmission works in the Ram?