I know this has been posted hundreds of times..But I will admit that I'm to lazy to do a serech..

Got a friend who wants to get into the diesel world...I'm trying to convince him to go with a 12V,but he wants something newer than a 12v or 24v...

What two years of the common rail was the best??Was it 2003 and 04??

 

It depends who you ask. I just spoke with a guy yesterday, and his 06 gets 25mpg empty and 30 towing a travel trailer. It probably gets 50mpg towing a mobile home...

 

Man...Up here...I seen so many common rails with melted pistons...I heard its the injectors like to get brain damage and flood out one to two pistons..Stupid electronic stuff...I thought I read somewhere that there was a couple of years that didn't have problems with injectors..or whatever is melting these pistons..Maybe its the CP3 going crazy..

 

All years are pretty much the same. Anything 03-07 I would consider the same for risk. Yes there is a ton of engine problems in them, but you got to consider how many of them are from programmers, etc? Still a ton of ones with high miles without issues to.

 

My 03 was a good truck untill I had wiring issues and the dealership tried to fix it. It would get 800-1200km per tank (19mpg town and 22ish highway). I had 190000km when I got rid of it.
My 05 gets 14-19mpg depending on if the programmer is installed. It is @ 299150km right now. from the records I have retrieved the only thing this truck has had done prior to me was ball joints.

For simplicity I would go with an older truck, when these newer ones break down they can be hard to diagnose. But if you have a good mechanic (winkdemon) then a new one won't be so bad if you do have some problems. Not to mention the newer ones are usually in better shape rust wise.

 

Good info here on 05 vs 06

http://dieselram.com/showthread.php?t=197159

 

Yes...I forgot about the programmers...I think he(Rob) said that these could destroy a motor in no time,if not dialed in right..

 

I've always heard that 03-04 were the best but I cant say for sure as I havnt owned a CR

 

I've heard the same. They have the better injector/piston design (the 6.7's went back to this design after the 04.5-07), and with only the pre injection event, and no post event, they say they usually get the better mileage as well.

 

I had an 04 and it dropped a valve...running stock. I later learned that the issue was dissimilar metals in the valve guides which was corrected later on.
I know of several trucks in the 06 model year that had injector issues...lots of them. Not saying 06 specifically but the guys I knew owned 2006 trucks and all had injector problems.

The best engine I have owned out of the 25...or is it 26 Rams and most of them over 250K miles or higher...is the one I have right now. 6.7 with deletes and Smarty. MPG is impressive and comparable or better then the 04 5.9.
I can net 1100 kilometers on a tank of fuel with the low fuel light on for 100 kms before I fill up ...thats highway at just under 100 KMH or 60 mph.
Average hwy is 900 kms per tank.
I recently made a run to the states and back and my mpg was down quite a bit.
600 kms to a tank. Swapped out the nasty black fuel filter and the mpg is back up again. I have the new updated 2 micron drop coming in this wk.

Whoops I got off topic...but at least its facts not tons of stories from my uncles brothers sister inlaws next door neighbor's dog sitters lawyer's diesel mechanic in the psyche ward.

 

Hmmm...So it was 5.9 CR that had most of the problems??Maybe I should tell him to buy a 6.7...I don't think I heard much about problems on the 6.7...yet.

Good thing I'm not the one buying a newer truck...

 

What exactly is he looking to do with the truck Dave? Thats the biggest question that hasn't been asked yet.

 

It all kinda depends on what you want to do with it. If you are going to hot rod the heck out of it, then the 03 04 is the best. 04.5 to 05 are the easiest to make quick power from, the 05 probably has the best flowing head of all. 06 and 07 5.9 have drive by wire tranny. The 03 04 are the best on fuel by a long shot though, just a little less HP to start.

Dave if you have any other questions, dont hesitate to ask!

 

From what Ive seen with the 03-04 common rails they still get bad injectors but they dont melt pistons like 04.5 and up.

I have actually seen quite a few 6.7L that are stock with popped headgaskets.

 

All engines can have problems, but I dont think that these problems are related to operator error. They are a very good engine, and dynamic timing is the boss