2006 Dodge 5.9 questions

[Dosch99]

I am looking at buying 06 Dodge 2500 with a 5.9 cummins truck has 36000 miles on looks like it left the show room hasnt pulled anything heavy. I have heard they are great trucks but also i heard the trannys arent the best. I will be pulling a 28ft enclosed trailer. The Truck is completely stock i dont plan on doing any major mods to it. What are your guys opinions on these trucks. Thanks

 

[Gmiller]

What tranny? I own a 03 cummins with a 5 spd. Love it. The autos are known to be not so hot. You'll love the tow-ability of the engine they flat out run. Your going to get duramax guys telling you no, but as me and several buddies know from real life experiences, the cummins are reliable, powerful and a great all around truck, oh and the fuel mileage isn't too bad either! Hope that helps some.

 

[AZ800]

Presume you're talking about the auto 48 RE.
Stock or not much xtra power, they hold up fine. Add a bunch of power and they'll lose life faster like any other stock trans.
Main thing I don't like about the 48 RE is not enough gear splits and loose torque converter.
If it's a deal though, it's a great truck and the last/best of the no emissions diesels.
I have an 07 5.9, great truck. 100k mi and only things other than std maint have been shocks (stock junk), front brakes at 80k mi, #4 injector line ($40),
steering box malfunction ($100 at Napa, b!tch to replace, kinda) and a new clutch (6 speed, my fault, running 90-120hp tune since new).

 

[Dosch99]

Sorry i forgot to mention it is an auto tranny.

 

[vdog0531]

transmissions lasting have a lot to do with how they are maintained and driven on. You can have a fully built trans and if you drive it like an idiot and dont take care of it, even that wont last.

as far as the truck goes.... GREAT MOTOR! torque is made so much lower on the cummins and is more useable. the mileage is also great, again, due to where it makes its power at.

 

[trickedout700]

If you are just gonna keep it stock I would buy it in a heartbeat. That is really low miles for the year and you should see great mileage too boot. Just service the tranny regularly and drive it. How much you buying it for if you don't mind me asking.

 

[suva]

We have one at work, it has about 220K on it, 6 speed tranny. We've had to replace a couple U joints, clutch actuator rod twice, headlight control module ($300), injector line and ball joints. It's been leaking coolant from the back of the engine for the last 50K and using oil for about 25K. it's up to about a gallon every 1000 miles now. Overall it's been a pretty good truck but it started feeling like a POS after about 60K, rattles, cab leaks, seats wearing etc.

 

[801]

I had one and it was a good truck, just keep the tranny serviced and drive it with the tow haul when towing and keep it stock you will like it, the seen to like ball joints at 50-60k and the #4 injector line likes to crack,the keeper comes loose and let it vibrate I finally cured mine when i put loc tite on it and that was the end of problem. don't put any extra horses to the tranny or it will take the life outta it fast!!!I pull a 33ft rv and a 28 ft enclosed in heavy mountains, i usually got about 17 in the winter and 20mpg in the summer and usually 11mpg towing. Hope this helps some!!

 

[440dart]

Buy it throw a valvebody in it bigger cooler should last decently with a moderate tune and moderate driver. Smarty or EFI live some guages then call it good. We have a towing company several 03+ trucks with over 500k drivetrain is nowhere near as bad as people make them out to be our trucks weigh 13k empty and they dont move unless they are towing someing all running tuners on a tow setting.

Only real problem we have had with the truck is injectors we have since put fass fuel system on and so far so good, nothing kills injectors faster then dirty fuel and air invest in a fast ASAP

 

[AZ800]

I don't notice anymore squeaks/rattles, small stuff falling apart than any other brand and I've owned/driven them all as well cared for personal vehicles and as construction trucks that got beat on. That kind of stuff is all in how you take care of the truck.
Take all 3 brands and beat them up and down the gas patch or turn them loose on a const job as a job truck and they will all feel like a POS sooner than later.
I guess a big selling point for me with the 06-07 5.9 Dodges is you get the newest possible truck with the simplest drivetrain and electronics.
No dpf, no traction control, solid axle, some are manual xfer case even. Less gadgets means less to go wrong in my book.

 

[Dosch99]

Thanks for the info guys im leaning towards buying it i think i can pick it up for around 26,000$ an i dont drive in the mountians except for a few snowmobile trips in the winter. im a flatlander haha

 

[MTMAXMaN]

Cummins 5.9 325hp/610tq

I have a 06 quadcab bighorn edition with the 5.9/48re tranny. I bought it new and didnt touch anything till 99,xxx. Was the rear driveshaft u-joint, had minor vibration over 70mph. I had to replace tranny cooler(130,xxx) that had a small leak,$225. At 180,xxx tranny started to sliip, had local tranny shop rebuild with triple disc torque converter, installed a shift kit and extra deep tranny pan. Got it back and couldn't beleive how nice it shifted and how it pulled. Wish it would have gave me issues earlier. I replaced upper and lower ball joints for the first time at 188,xxx. It is on its 6th set of tires, 2nd set of brakes and just over 200,000 it runs great. I pull 5-7,000 daily and pull 16,000 2-5 times a month. Mileage has been 17-20 winter and 18-22 summer empty. pulling is 10-15 at 2,000 rpm. Mileage seems to fall off if you run over 2,000. GOOD LUCK

 

[Dosch99]

Thanks again for the info. what do you guys think of cab room i know its not as big as the fords an chevys. But is it comfortable for 2 adults in the back seat? I will be going to look at it on thrusday. Its a quadcab big horn edition.

 

[D-stroyer]

Quad cabs are small. It's the mega cab you want if you're getting a short box truck. I had an'06 5.9/48RE as well. Dodge seems to think that a fuel injection system which requires 3 micron filtration will do fine with 10 micron filtration. Where I was living the fuel seemed to have a lot of asphaltenes which pack the filters up really fast. 2 tanks of bad fuel in a year smoked almost 2 full sets of injectors. I installed an airdog system and was fine after that. Lift pumps are weak on these trucks anyway so it was worth it. Get some gauges. A basic transmission upgrade(flexplate, triple disc converter and valvebody) is the single biggest driveability boost you can give the truck, and the more efficient converter will keep your transmission temps lower. Front end parts suck on these trucks. I got mine in'08 with 36000 miles and it needed a ball joint. guess what? it needed another one 30000 miles later so I changed them all to dynatrac pro steers. Problem solved. Oh, when you go in for an alignment and the drag link adjuster is seized because the clowns never put antiseize on 2 years before during the recall, you have to buy a whole steering assembly for 530 bucks(in Canada anyway). Pick up a few mpg with a manual hub conversion and thank me later for telling you to do it.

Ok, the engines are great(mine was amazing after the camshaft swap) but with all the stupid stuff that fell apart during my 95% highway driving, I feel as though dodge was simply too cheap or too lazy to go the extra mile and invest in critical chassis components. You know, the stuff that costs a fortune to fix. I have a 2011 duramax and with all of the emissions equipment intact it still gets better fuel mileage. All this crying and snivelling about urea in the new trucks makes me laugh.

 

[AZ800]

Be informed about what constitutes a "bad" ball joint.
My 07 is approaching 100k mi and I had to get an alignment around 50-60k, me or the wife whacked a curb too hard or something.
Shop said my ball jts were out of spec and needed replaced. Now I had no uneven tire wear, death wobble, etc.
I looked at their pre-alignment results and the bj's were out on caster, but camber was still in spec. Of course, neither is adjustable with the OE bj's.
I told them to set the toe and call it good. 40k+ later it still drives fine, no tire issues. I felt the same slop in the ball jts from 20k mi on I bet and it hasn't gotten significantly worse.

 

[AZ800]

Thanks again for the info. what do you guys think of cab room i know its not as big as the fords an chevys. But is it comfortable for 2 adults in the back seat? I will be going to look at it on thrusday. Its a quadcab big horn edition.

It's a glorified exteneded cab. Not bad for adults legroom if the front seats aren't all the way back, but the rear seat back is pretty vertical.
Better than an ext cab, not as good as a crew cab........stands to reason.

 

[ndC7M8]

BUY IT! Especially if its got low miles like that, its a deal! It's a great pickup. I've had my Mega Cab since April of 2008. Bought with 53,000 miles on it (it was basically a car for a friend's sister-in-law to go to work and haul kids), ran it pretty much stock until around 100,000 miles, then I put a 4" straight pipe on with a Banks intake and a Smarty SO6 programmer. I run a 30 horse tune in the colder months to prevent any damage, but I have ran it up to the 90 extra horse tune for a couple weeks and I've never had any tranny problems. Had the trans oil changed around 70k, and I had the trans/torque converter completely flushed a few months ago around 135k. I've got just under 147,000 on the odometer now and they only problems I've ever had were ball joints (lots of gravel road travel), u-joints (non-greasable originals), a blend door in the dash broke and sucked up against the blower and prevented the ac from functioning properly last summer (once again, I blame rough gravel roads and offroad farm use) , and my power steering pump did fail around 100k. Otherwise it's been a great truck. Made a few trips to the mountains, pulls big implements 40 miles plus between our farms in the summer and gets driven all over the country for fun. My Dodge is the red one in my picture here.

 

[73]

Buy It. It's the Best truck you can get! (other then a 5.9 with a manual!)

 

[RMKNV]

If you don't buy it let me know where it is. Sounds like a great find,

 

[machinest660]

I have a 06 with a auto trans, I run edge juice with attitude and 4.5 exhaust. when towing I run on level 2, works great but I do have trouble keeping the transmission cool, gonna look into that real fast before it fails completely. I say but it and with a few upgrades you will have a great rig. good luck.