Njmurvin

My truck had 150 miles on it when I took delivery (was moved from another dealership). I had to drive about 300 miles r/t to a Camping World to get my Andersen hitch. Trying to keep the truck under 60mph on I5 was a real challenge. Another 50 miles or so driving around town before my first tow to Big Bear, CA. No problems at all pulling my 12K 5th wheel up the mountain. More importantly, the EB worked beautifully on the way down once I got the hang of using the brake to engage it.

This is snipped from the GM Employee Discount Rules and Guidelines ... and is consistent with what my brother ran into when trying to buy a truck off the lot from several dealerships. "Dealership participation is voluntary. To determine a specific dealership’s willingness to sell vehicles under the Program, the Participant or Sponsored Purchaser should contact the dealership directly. If a dealership is not willing to sell a vehicle through the Program, the Participant or Sponsored Purchaser may contact or visit another dealership."

My brother had his truck totaled in an accident about 6 weeks ago. We were trying to find him a new GM truck using the employee discount. He called several dealers in California and they pretty much laughed at him when he asked if they were honoring the employee discount. They told him they were getting as much as $10k over sticker for HD trucks. Now, this was for existing or incoming inventory - not a new order. That could be an entirely different story. Dealers have the discretion to accept employee discount deals or not. I didn't know until this experience whether that was across the board or if they could pick and choose depending on model. As stated, some models (like Corvette) are excluded entirely by GM. Just about a year ago, I had no trouble using the employee discount to purchase my truck right off the lot. He ended up finding a RAM 3500 at MSRP plus some dubious dealer-added equipment and felt lucky to get it.

My 2004 Dodge Ram had amber clearance lights and it was never an issue in 17 years of driving it in CA.

I have noticed this as well with my truck. Stopping when rolling seems normal to me. But, sitting at a light, the truck feels like it wants to go. Maybe this isn't just an issue with the brakes. Could it be that the stall speed of the torque converter is set marginally low? That could explain some of this behavior.

I had the Extang Trifecta on my previous truck and loved it. It was so easy to remove that the few occasions I needed that extra 2ft I just removed the top entirely. If I had to do that frequently, it would definitely become an issue. I haven't purchased a topper for my new truck yet. But, in looking around I seem to recall seeing some that fold up at the cab. However, I think those have their own rail systems inside the truck rails. I've ruled those out because I need all the clearance I can get for my fifth wheel pinbox on hard turns.

I have the AUH with the OEM puck/gooseneck ball. As much as I like the AUH, I have also second-guessed my purchase thinking I might consider the goosebox if I had it to do over (mostly due to the clean bed when unhooked). However, the people I travel with have traditional 5th wheel hitches. In a pinch, if I need my trailer towed by a buddy's truck, I'd be screwed and have to find someone with a gooseneck ball. With the AUH, all I have to do is remove the king pin adapter (two bolts and loosen the set screws).

I have the bench seat (had it on my previous truck too). It's nice for the occasional 6th passenger. The fold down console is big enough for me. One huge benefit FOR ME is that I can fold the console up and slide across the seat easily to enter/exit the passenger door. "Why?", you ask. I park my 5th wheel up against a block wall on my left and there isn't enough room to open the driver side door. So, I slide across the seat to the passenger door during my parking process. Works like a charm! I probably would not have thought of this had I not just parked the 5th wheel this morning.

I have a loaded 2020 Dmax 3500 LT (conv 2, leather, Z71, 5th wheel/gooseneck towing) that I bought last summer. It has everything I wanted except adaptive cruise (which none of these trucks has) and front/rear parking assist. I found it locally sitting on a lot and grabbed it with my employee discount for $54K +T&L + steps (so I could climb into the thing). Its primary use is towing my 12k fifth wheel and it pulls that down the road the same as the $80k models do. Fortunately for me, I came out of a 2004.5 Dodge Ram 3500 Laramie that I bought new. This truck has everything the older Laramie had and more.

My 2020 3500 LT came with it. I assume yours will too.

There's a post regarding this problem on another forum. I don't know if it's OK to put a link to another forum. In short, there are aluminum heater hoses behind the lower glovebox. They need to be tied with a wire-tie. Several people on that forum with this exact problem fixed it this way. I haven't done it. I plan to point this out to the dealer when I take it in for my free oil change service.

Andersen Ultimate Hitch connected to a gooseball in the OEM puck hole. 40lbs light and drives like a dream (no clunks like my Superglide used to do). Adds clearance from the cab as well depending on how you configure it.

All I care about is that it's way nicer than my 2004 Ram was. I love that it has a volume knob and knobs for the climate control. I saw one guy on YT that threw a fit over the location and operation of the Tow/Haul button. My old truck had it on the end of the shifter. I don't really mind the new location and love that it stays on persistently with restarts for a while so you don't have to keep turning it on after short stops.

Third this^^^^ My truck has the OEM pucks. It also came with the Curt hitch package. I just plug the goose ball in the hole in the bed and drop the 40lb hitch over it and cinch it down. Actually, I have a padded mat (made from a Home Depot rubber mat) that I put under the hitch to help protect the bed. It tows beautifully and there's plenty of clearance from the cab on tight turns.,

I also have the Andersen Ultimate Hitch. Do you have the OEM towing package with the pucks in your truck bed? You can measure your 5th wheel pinbox length and compare against measurements from the center of the gooseball position to your tailgate and side rails of your bed to determine if the AUH can be installed to get the full added 9" of cab clearance. The process is described in the installation manual for the hitch which you can download from their website. In my case, my pinbox (Airborne) clears both the tailgate and side rails allowing me to enjoy the full extra 9" of clearance to the cab that the Andersen offers. Due to the longer GM bed, the extra 2" setback by the factory and the 9" added by the Andersen setup, my trailer connected with the fixed hitch clears my cab by more than it did with the Pullrite Superglide on my Ram 3500 short bed. In addition, chances are that your trailer is new(er) and has the front corners carved out for added cab clearance. I would be very surprised if you will need a slider hitch.

Thanks!!!!!!

^^^ What he said!!!

Last weekend, my truck received an over the air update. If it told me what the purpose of the update was, I must have missed it. It took about 15 minutes to complete. Does anyone know what the update is supposed to fix?

I pull a 2011 Arctic Fox 27.5L fifth wheel using an Andersen Ultimate hitch connected to the OEM gooseneck puck (the GM gooseneck ball was ordered by the dealer with my truck). The trailer weighs about 12K lbs and the truck pulls it effortlessly. The Duramax paired with the 10 speed transmission is a towing dream. The exhaust brake takes a bit of getting used to (coming from an old school Cummins with a PacBrake) but does a nice job holding speed on downhill grades. If I had any complaints, it's mostly how tall this truck is. The axles on my fifth wheel are already flipped. The trailer rides just a touch "nose up" but it's acceptable. I haven't towed enough on flat to semi-flat ground yet to judge mpg. But, I wasn't impressed with the mpg I got pulling up into the local mountains (in the neighborhood of 9mpg).

I haven't used a charger on my Silverado yet. But I used it once on my Ram 3500 which also had dual batteries. I left the ignition on one night and drained the batteries pretty well. Next morning it wouldn't start (surprise!!). I connected the charger to the driver side battery only and in a few hours, the truck started right up. I would also try to find out where the parasitic drain is. I have left my truck in the garage for at least 2 weeks on multiple occasions and had no problem firing it up.

I don't know how the factory wireless carplay units work. But the carplay2air units use BOTH bluetooth and wireless. They use bluetooth at startup to send the credentials to the app on your phone to connect to the wifi running on carplay2air dongle. Once the wifi connection is made, carplay starts.

If I spent more time driving my truck it might be worth it to me. I have the carplay2air and it works most of the time - although frustrating when it doesn't. I really only need carplay for long trips to get Waze which also sucks the phone battery dry - so the cable connection takes care of that (I don't have wireless charging).

That's exactly what I expect. My 04.5 Dodge Ram 3500 would struggle a bit with that climb. It was bone stock with a 4 speed 48RE and 3.73 gears. My CTS2 monitor alarm for EGTs was set at 1400 degrees and even the stock truck had no problem exceeding that whenever I buried my foot in it on that long climb. So, I would have to back it off from time to time to keep the EGTs in line - for peace of mind. It made for a tense 15-20 minutes on the long Sherwin Grade. My hope is that I can set the cruise on my new truck to 60-65, sit back and let the extra hp, torque and that 10 speed do their work.

Mine actually came with the bracket still in a bag in the back seat. Yes, it is riveted. For that reason I made the dealer install it as I'm in an area where cops will go out of their way to ticket you for "no front plate".

I don't really care how well mine pulls a competition sled or how it pulls 30k up the Ike (TFL test). All I care about is how well it pulls my 12k lb 5th wheel up (and down) the long 6 percent grades that I climb going to the Eastern Sierras. I will be testing that in June. I have made a couple of trips with shorter 6 percent (and more) climbs and it performed beautifully (especially on the way down - once I figured out how to best use the e-brake).