00:00 We're here in California's wine country with two of the biggest and strongest pickup trucks
00:12 sold in the United States.
00:13 The Ford Super Duty is the 2011 model, that's the new player in the segment, and last year's
00:19 strong player, in fact, Motor Trend's 2010 truck of the year, the 2010 Dodge Ram Heavy
00:25 Duty.
00:26 What's new about the Super Duty?
00:28 Two brand new engines, a new 6.2 liter gas engine and a brand new 6.7 liter turbo diesel,
00:35 and a new six-speed, sourced by Ford, built by Ford, specifically to deal with both engines.
00:41 On the Dodge side, two engines, one gas, one diesel, the Cummins turbo diesel, the 6.7
00:46 liter, brand new just a couple of years ago, no modifications this year, but is the strong
00:52 puller in the segment.
00:54 Also Dodge offers the 5.7 liter Hemi, 380 horsepower, 400 foot pounds of torque, is
01:00 still a strong puller for anybody that wants a heavy duty truck without the turbo diesel
01:04 engine.
01:05 So, come along with us as we try to find out who is the king of the heavy haulers.
01:11 So we're here in the Super Duty on our first drive loops, truck is completely empty and
01:15 we get a chance to feel how this does, just real world daily driving.
01:20 The truck itself, from a construction point of view, the frame isn't that much different,
01:24 I guess there's some extra cross members and they had to do a little bit of tweaking because
01:28 the big news is obviously the powertrain, a new 6.7 liter power stroke engine and six-speed
01:35 automatic transmission behind it.
01:37 The diesel is taken in-house, it used to be made by International, now it's being made
01:42 by Ford, 390 horsepower, 735 foot pounds of torque.
01:47 So for anybody who's hauling big loads occasionally or constantly, this is probably a pretty good
01:53 choice and from what I'm feeling at this point, it's pretty impressive.
01:56 The new interior is freshened, it's not completely revamped, but what is unique and different
02:03 about this 2011 model is the information center that gives you oil temperature, fuel economy,
02:10 tells you about tire pressures, it tells you about tranny temperatures, it gives you all
02:13 sorts of trip and odo information that you might want, how many hours the engine has
02:17 been running, a lot of good information that people who tow and use trucks on a professional
02:24 or even just personal basis need to know and want to know.
02:28 So far so good, but a lot of the personality of a pickup truck is built into how it hauls
02:34 and how it tows, so I'm looking forward to see how this truck performs in those situations.
02:41 So now we've just jumped into the Dodge Ram Heavy Duty, it's the 2010 model, I love what
02:46 they've done with the interior, it's a huge upgrade from what it was before, much better
02:50 material usage, much better layouts, very similar to the half ton Dodge Ram which had
02:57 so much success last year.
02:59 Definitely like the way the vehicle is sounding, it's got that Cummins diesel engine to it.
03:04 When it's empty, that's probably not the area that it loves to deal with, Cummins engines
03:09 historically loved to pull heavy loads, loved to carry heavy loads, this 6.7 liter obviously
03:16 is very strong.
03:17 If I compare it to the Super Duty, there's just something about the front suspensions
03:22 in particular that seem very very different.
03:25 They're both live axles, they're both coil springs, but the Super Duty has two giant
03:31 locating arms attaching to the front live axle.
03:35 Dodge is a little bit different, they have four links that actually locate and attach
03:40 that live axle.
03:42 Seems to do a good job, but there's just something about irregularities in the road that seem
03:48 to cause a little more front end vibration.
03:53 We've just finished our empty drive loops with each pickup truck, but now we're at our
03:57 secret equestrian center location where we've measured and weighed each vehicle in order
04:03 to calculate exactly what the exact payload number for each truck is.
04:07 We've loaded each truck with horse bedding, 35 pound bags, 57 bags each in each pickup
04:14 truck, now we're going to take them over the same course and see how each pickup truck
04:18 performs then.
04:19 Okay, now we're here with the bed loaded.
04:22 In the case of this 2011 Super Duty that we have, this is pretty nice.
04:26 There's a lot of little features the engineers have clearly incorporated in.
04:30 The tow haul mode also incorporates a lot of transmission and diesel engine information,
04:36 so they're constantly talking to each other and as a consequence making some delicate
04:42 small changes back and forth.
04:44 And I have to say that the smoothness and the refinement and the ability for this vehicle
04:50 to make its shifts from a dead stop as well as at speed and the passing power that it
04:57 has is very impressive.
05:00 Okay now we're in our Ram Heavy Duty, fully loaded.
05:04 My first impression seems to be centered on the rear axle and how it's carrying weight.
05:09 There's a five leaf pack in the Dodge and there's a three leaf pack in the Super Duty.
05:14 There's just something a little more controlled about how this Dodge is taking some of the
05:19 corners and some of the irregularities in the road.
05:23 What I don't seem to like is at least when I put it into manual mode, the transmission
05:27 doesn't seem to fall to my thumb.
05:30 It's got a nice little thumb shifter that when I grab the shifter handle seems to be
05:34 directly underneath my palm.
05:35 In fact I'm even accidentally sometimes shifting up or down when I don't want to.
05:42 Alright now we're at the stage where we get to test these trucks pulling a heavy trailer.
05:47 We've set up both of these trucks with horse trailers filled to the hilt with horse bedding.
05:52 A hundred and forty bags, thirty-five pounds each behind each pickup truck over the same
05:57 drive loops we've done for the last couple of days.
06:00 So we're here on our trailer portion of the test.
06:02 I've got about somewhere between sixty-five hundred and seven thousand pounds on the back
06:06 end of this Super Duty.
06:07 I have to say I like what I'm feeling.
06:10 Very little wag, really good power, good pickup.
06:13 Feels like the engine is well within its comfort zone.
06:16 For right now it feels very comfortable and very confident.
06:21 Now we're here on the trailering loop with the Dodge Ram Heavy Duty.
06:25 And there's some distinct differences that I can pick up between the Super Duty and the
06:29 Ram Heavy Duty.
06:30 The most obvious of which is the noise that a Cummins engine makes, which I personally
06:35 like.
06:38 There's just more of a growl, more of a rumble.
06:42 The Ford Super Duty definitely more refined, we mentioned that.
06:46 Quieter, much smoother in shifting when empty, much smoother in shifting when loaded.
06:52 But here on the trailering loop, there's a certain amount of confidence and a sense of
06:57 reserve power that you have with an engine that's this strong.
07:04 So here we are at the end of our test and it's time to pick a winner.
07:07 Now the Ram Heavy Duty does a lot of things really well.
07:09 It's got a great new exterior, the interior is a huge improvement from the previous model,
07:14 and the Cummins engine is pretty much the standard in the segment.
07:18 However Ford has a lot riding on this Super Duty.
07:20 They had a couple of problems with the previous generation.
07:23 They bought the powertrain in-house.
07:25 They've designed a new gas engine, a new diesel engine, and an incredibly smart six-speed
07:31 transmission.
07:32 But the one aspect that really separated the Ford Super Duty from the Ram Heavy Duty was
07:37 the integration between the new six-speed and the all-new power stroke engine.
07:41 Whether we were doing driving loops empty or fully loaded, the Ford Super Duty was always
07:46 up to the task.
07:47 And that's why the 2011 Ford Super Duty is our King of the Heavy Haulers.
07:52 [Music]
07:59 (whooshing)
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