Ram Promaster 3500 Diesel

Does anyone have much experience with these? We are thinking of getting one for my work, we haul batteries so it will always be loaded with 2500lbs or so. They are horribly ugly but we are not in the battery business to pick up chicks lol, are these things any good? I see lots of them but haven't really spoken to anyone that has one? Thanks

Looking from the rear, the axle looks like 2x2 square tube.
Doesn't look heavy duty enough

I've been a FedEx Ground contractor for over 30 years and currently have 8 delivery vehicles servicing 30 zip codes in a 2700 square mile rural area in Tennessee.

Our business requires more cubic foot capacity and less weight capacity than what you are doing, but several other contractors I know are using the Promaster vans and are doing okay with them. The weak point seems to be transaxles and front wheel drive components. For you application you probably won't need to travel every stupid little gravel road / creek bed / cow path / ungraded 15% grade driveway - so you probably would have fewer problems with that.

For ergonomics you would probably benefit from the Promaster lower floor platform, batteries are really heavy. For my business they just don't have quite enough cubic feet of capacity.

Personally I have one Freightliner MT55 heavy step an, two GMC vans and seven GMC Savana 3500 box trucks. I pick them up used from UHaul with about 90-100K miles for under $10K, then hand them over to my guys who will abuse them mercilessly for another 150-200K miles with very few problems.

I'm a Mopar guy but business is business, and there's not a Dodge currently available that fits my application. Might work for yours if the transaxle stuff is up to the weight involved..

Thank you for the input, we currently use the Chevy 3500 Express vans with the 6.0. They are good, very reliable, and priced well. What sucks is that Chevrolet dropped some van production when they started to build the Colorado again. Because of that we can't get the Chevy vans with doors on both sides like we used to, and ford only offers that option with the tall box. This Promaster was just offered to us out of the blue with 20K on it already lettered up for our company, I need to find the previous owner and ask why because it is in perfect condition.

What diesel is in the Promaster? If it's the 3.0 used in the RAM that may be the reason for getting rid of it given that there have been problems with those engines failing prematurely. If it is the eco-diesel 3.0, I suggest you steer clear of it.

- EM

it is a 3.0 inline 4 cylinder with a very slushy automatic/manual transmission. transmission takes a lot of getting used to.easy explanation is.A manual transmission that has an external valve body that does the pushing in the clutch and shifting for you. Engine compartment very small, need to remove engine for most engine repairs.

Autoweek test here:

http://autoweek.com/article/car-reviews/2014-ram-promaster-drive-review

R.

So it has a dual clutch transmission?