Well, I ordered June 20, 2004. They built my truck 3 weeks later. For the past several months I have been calling the dealer, Dodge customer service, and everyone I could think of to try and locate my truck. It had been "in storage" during this whole time, whatever the heck that means. Talk about frustrating, having a new truck that you can't get your hands on! Well, much to my surprise, the dealership called me yesterday and said "we located your truck and had someone go pick it up and it's now sitting on our lot"!! YEEHAW!!
I took a trip over to the dealership having not yet 100% decided if I wanted this truck. The heated seats weren't availble with the J package when I ordered and I REALLY wanted them. Then there's the MPG issues. My mind has been put to ease a little bit due to the reflash helping a lot of people, but I still didn't want to end up with a 12MPG truck pre-reflash so I insisted on driving it before I took delivery.
Man this thing is smoooth. No vibrations at any speed. I took her up to 80 or so to make sure. Oh man, I didn't realize how much I missed that turbo whistle! The CTD is music to my ears... being without one since May has made me that much more appreciative of what a marvelous work of engineering this motor is. Now for the MPG: I was a little nervous heading for the freeway because it was reading 6.8MPG on the overhead, but this was stop n stop traffic. I hit the freeway and got her up to 70mph and hit the reset button on the overhead. At first it jumped to 21mpg but I think we were going slightly downhill. Over the next couple miles it settled at about 16.8-17.2MPG @ 70MPH. Not bad for a truck with 18 miles on the ticker, I would say! If she gets 1-2 MPG improvement on break-in, that puts me in the 18-19MPG range. I can live with that! But wait, it gets better! As it turns out, my engine build date was 8/11/04. This makes me eligable for the 18-037-04 TSB. I decided to leave the truck at the dealership and they are doing this first thing this morning. I am supposed to pick up the truck in a few hours, and I will let everyone know the results after I take her home! I know I can't be too excited before I do a hand-calc, but if I get anywhere near 20MPG on the display at 70MPH I will be a very happy boy!!
So, screw the heated seats, I don't want to wait another 3 months for them!! Oh yeah, and this is the first sunroof equipped truck I've seen, and let me tell you it's awesome! The fit and finish of the sunroof is very nice. Overall I'm extremely happy with the truck so far, and hope it proves to be a solid, reliable performer for
at least the next 10 years / 300K miles that I plan to keep her!
I'll take some pics (of sunroof especially since I haven't seen pics out there yet) later today and update this thread as I find out more about my new baby! Now you can all be happy that you can quit listening to me whine!
It's Heeeeerrrre :) NEW '05, MPG info too...
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