To that we added power-adjustable, leather-trimmed bucket front seats ($1875); a Sport package (115-volt power outlet, leather-wrapped steering wheel with auxiliary audio controls, heated power side mirrors with turn-signal repeaters, fog lamps, an electric shift-on-the-fly four-wheel-drive selector, and various trim elements, for $3840); remote start ($335); a Sport Premium package (rear park assist, dual-zone climate control, and Alpine audio upgrade, for $750); a nav system with Sirius satellite audio ($1745); power-adjustable pedals ($125); a 32-gallon fuel tank ($75); a Class IV trailer-hitch receiver and seven-pin connector ($335); the exterior RamBox bins for small-cargo storage ($1895); and, of course, the 5.7-liter Hemi V-8 ($1310).
Including the $900 destination charge, it added up to a $48,285 truck. Dodge has whittled almost a grand off Ram pricing for 2010, and our example was still some distance from the top of the price charts. But no one could call it inexpensive.
Nor was it inexpensive to feed. EPA-rated at 13 mpg in the city and 18 on the highway, our Ram’s fuel economy over 40,000 miles averaged 14 mpg. We didn’t have to burn premium—Dodge recommends mid-grade for this version of the Hemi, but 2857 gallons of any fuel tends to add up to a hefty sum: $7631, for mid-grade in our case. You may have noticed this phenomenon yourself.
Generally speaking, the Ram went about its duties without any big problems. All but one of its service visits was routine, consisting primarily of oil changes, tire rotations, and a variety of inspections. But there were quite a few of these maintenance stops—six in 36,000 miles—and not all of them were cheap. The one that stands out in this regard is the 30,000-mile service, which ran $483, and that included new spark plugs (16 of them). The plugs cost $84. But getting the old ones out and the new ones in took 2.9 hours at $96 per, adding $278 in labor to the tab.
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