2018 Canyon Duramax

I was looking for a second truck as my Cummins is getting old and don't want to use it daily, basically only using it for my heavy hauling. I have owned all three 1- Powerstroke, 3- Duramax and 1- Cummins and prefer Duramax. After looking at the GMC 6.2 gasser in the 1500 Denali I wasn't impressed with the power and punch when dumping the throttle at cruise speed. I decided to buy a 2018 Canyon Denali with the 2.8 Turbo Duramax. The very next day I drove to West Texas 460 miles, I am very impressed with this little beast. It ran just like a bigger diesel set the cruise at 80 mph and it never dropped more than 1 mph and never down shifted the whole way up I-10. I got 25.5 mpg right out the gate (hand figured). As torquey as this little brute is I have no doubt it will handle pulling my Ranger no problem.
Time will tell but if it measures up to my 3 previous Big Duramaxs which I never did anything other then oil changes with no issues what so ever, I will be very pleased.

Congrats!

That's great mpg for a pickup. A tad bit better than what my Ram Ecodiesel would get at those speeds.

You were disappointed with the power and punch of the 6.2? Over 400 hp and 400 ft pounds of torque? But are pleased as punch with the sub 200 hp sub 400 ft pounds of torque baby-max?

You may be in for disappointment with the baby-max towing. It has a good amount of torque for a little motor, but the HP is definitely on the LOW side. My ecodiesle has more hp and more torque by a good bit on both and you will surely notice the boat back there. Once up to speed they do great, but you will by trying to stick an oar out the window if you want to get in a hurry loaded.

I like them and have largely read good things about them, but I just cant wrap my head around buying one because it has more power and punch than the 6.2 lol. Hope you enjoy it and its a good one for you.

Maybe try it. I ran mine to Louisiana and back about a year ago doing 85 and got over 25.

Ha Ha I was thinking the same thing. That 6.2 will get it even in a heavy Tahoe/Yukon. The Canyon diesel is more a MPG thing than power. I do like them but power and speed isn't what comes to mind when I drive one.

I get 26-27 running about 75. I just assumed it was 24.5-25 running 80, but I've never run that fast for any sustained period with mine.

I missed the part about him being dissatisfied with the 6.2L. That's very difficult to believe.

In general, I am happy that he's happy but I have no understanding of the demand for light duty trucks at the prices they're asking. The Canyon/Colorado diesels cost about the same as a half ton truck (more in some cases). Why would you choose so much less capability for the same price? Since the Ram ED's inception, you don't have to sacrifice mpg to drive a half ton any more.

No I wasn't impressed with the 6.2 in a half ton truck sorry. It may have been due to driving my Cummins. As I stated I am keeping my bigger diesel for heavy towing and actually Jan 1 that will be gone for a Duramax Dually. The Canyon will just be pulling my boat around most of the time 60 to 120 miles roundtrip. Will I use it to tow to Lake Fork from South Texas no my big Diesel will do that. I do a lot of traveling so I was looking at the mpg factor also.
Have any of you driven or owned a 6.2? I owned the 6.0 in an earlier model and I figured the 6.2 would have more power then the 6.0 being newer tech. Maybe it was a combination of the 6.2 and 8 speed tranny but when I dumped it at 60 I didn't feel 400+ HP I didn't feel it. I even commented to the salesmen about how I wasn't impressed he didn't have anything to say.

Sorry Dodge guys my Current Cummins is the last Chrysler product I will ever own love the motor not the truck, the Eco Diesel wasn't even a thought.

For a small pickup yes I am impressed and it should perform well as a SECOND SMALL economical Diesel. And if it doesnt then I will trade it off for a 2500 Duramax. Because I can!

Thanks for the responses, everyone has their take, likes and dislikes, opinions and as you know ###holes.



MAGA!

I dont believe I ever said it had more power and punch than a 6.2. What I said was I wasnt impressed with the power and punch of a 6.2. And I am impressed with this pickup so far.
(Given its size, what I will be towing with it and MPG) ( And yes I realize the additional cost for todays Diesel motors with DEF, DPF Filters and so on)
LOL LOl lol lol. Read a little closer and maybe you will see that.
Next time I will be much more specific in my reasoning so that it is easily understood.

That little baby max will out run and out trap the ecodiesel at the drag strip. I want the new ZR2. If it was me, I would delete the DPF/DEF/SCR systems. Keep us posted how the babymax treats you, I’m curious about life time issues/bug that may come up as it’s so new.

My ecodiesel is slow - no debate about that.

But I've never had a truck at the drag strip either. It gets me 26-28 mpg commuting to work, 19-20 mpg pulling my bass boat, and still has enough power to pull my 6k lbs travel trailer at 65-70 mph comfortably. There really isn't any other vehicle in existence that can do all of that, to my knowledge.

While I do agree that it’s good at what it does for a turn key, mass produced vehicle for the price. There are other vehicles that can do all that and then some, but they are custom one off builds. There is 3 in the metroplex that I know of.

Are your fuel mileage numbers hand calculated or are you quoting what the trucks info center is telling you? Are you deleted? I ask because those numbers seem to be high for a modern Diesel engine with an operating and intact DPF system. Here is why I say that. The diesel particulate filter is a soot trap. The truck monitors the soot capacity, or fullness of the filter/soot trap. When it reaches a predetermined full level (typically 90% full), the truck will regen, or regeneration operating mode. When regening, the truck starts to inject more fuel. Ether by adding extra injection sequences during the exhaust stroke, or by activating an extra injector in the exhaust system up stream of the DPF. The reason for using this extra fuel is to increase the EGT; exhaust gas temperature. There is a pre-DPF and post DPF EGT probe to Sense the exhaust temperature going in to and out of the DPF. Once the pre-DPF EGT sensor detects EGTs are at the target temperature (up to 1,800 degrees) the actual regen begins. The EGT literally cooks, or burns MOST of the soot in the DPF in to pure carbon and the carbon passes through the DPF and out the tail pipe or gets trapped in the SCR (selective catalyst reduction) canister. The truck uses the temperature difference between the pre and post DPF EGT sensors, and in some cases an exhaust back pressure sensor, to determine when the regen is complete. Basically once the post DPF EGT sensor detects the same or close to the same EGT as the pre DPF EGT sensor, it will switch back to normal operation mode and stop the regen process; stoping the injection of the extra fuel. This process takes a significant Toll on fuel economy. This effect on fuel economy gets worse as time goes on if the driver manually bypasses, or denies recommended regen, an incomplete regen is stopped (most of the time this happens because it’s regening and the driver gets to their desired destination and shuts the engine off), or because the DPF never fulling regens all the carbon/soot out of the DPF/soot trap, causing the regen process time to increase, in some cases up to 2 hours. The last reason I listed should also be noted that over time, the DPF will become permanently clogged/full and requires the removal and replacement of the soot trap/DPF; to the tune of thousands of dollars. To add to the annoyance, when a regen is ineffective, or a failed regen, it will store a hard code in the PCM, activate a check engine light, put the vehicle in limp mode, and if continued operation like this, completely shut down the engine.

It’s for these reasons I feel your stated fuel mileage seems high in my opinion, and why I recommend completely and fully deleting the DPF and SCR systems. The SCR system is even more expensive to maintain and repair; and they have a high failure rate. It’s also an added operational expense due to the constant use of the DEF (diesel exhaust fluid). To that end, it is highly recommended to keep the DEF tank completely full as often as humanly possible. DEF Crystallizes very quickly when exposed to the atmosphere. This crystallized material fouls the DPF pump, supply lines, and dozer valve internally. Also make sure the DPF tank cap seal is working properly and seals completely.

In the case of the ram, the hemi truck is less expensive and has 700 lbs more pulling/towing capacity than the eco diesel. Given the additional maintenance and operational cost of the eco diesel, the hemi option is a better buy for most people’s need of a 1/2 ton ram.

I appreciate your feed back. The truck just turned 1000 miles the mpg was hand figured as originally stated I will be taking it for another long trip soon and plan on checking the mpg again. Most people dont realize modern diesels need to be ran longer intervals in order to achieve proper regen. People that use their diesels for shorter local communiting will always have more regen issues and DPF clogs than someone running longer distances and greater run times it has to do with temp and rpms and runtime . Its really no different than running modern big rigs I have run Cummins ISX, Detroits and Paccar engines. If you take someone floating (shifting) at 13 to 1500 rpms thier rig will always regen more frequently then someone floating (shifting) at say 1600 or even 1800 especially loaded. The higher rpm blows the DPF out. And in a rig you should always allow it to regen completely before shutting down, other wise the regen process is incomplete.
As far as deleting my brand new truck again that depends more on the use and I would never do it until it is out of warranty. So I would have to disagree with a blanket statement that a new truck should be deleted. My Ram 6.7 is fully deleted I bought it that way and added a cold air intake. With my use of this truck it should regen properly with longer road trips.

On Ram Trucks and Chrysler products I am not saying their necessarily bad. Of the the two I have owned Jeep and Ram my luck hasnt been that great with them. My GMs have towed more hauled more been ran harder and longer with zero mechanical issues.

Ya I read about the ZR2 sounds pretty cool.

The ride and spunk of this baby duramax is smooth and fun. I ordered my A.R.E. shell should be in later this month. Thats about all I am doing for the first year to see how the truck does. I have heard of guys getting as high as 28 mpg but thats probably at 65 mph to slow for me.

The only issues I see with the truck are as follows.

1). The power seats are not as directional as I would expect from a Denali package.

2). The cargo light can only be activated when the vehicle is in park not handy for traveling at night and wanting to make a quick cargo check. Unless I am missing a programming option.

3). Very limited door and console storage. But hey it is a smaller truck.

Not deleted, bone stock, hand calculated. I've gotten 31 mpg on highway trips. 26-28 mpg is a mix of mostly hwy and some city on the commute to work.

Sure the hemi is a nice truck. It's probably the second best value in the half ton market. But if you factor in first of all that the ED is holding it's value about the same amount above the hemi that the ED costs you up front, then you aren't actually paying anything for it. Even if you were, if gas goes to $3 or $4 a gallon, the ED will look like the bargain of the century. It already is a huge bargain in the low-30s for a well-equipped crew cab that's getting upper 20s mpg.

Imagine 150k miles of truck ownership. Fuel costs $2.50 a gallon. Hemi gets 18 mpg (for the version that can tow anything reasonable), and the ED gets 27 mpg. You'll spend $21k on fuel for the hemi and $14k on fuel for the ED. Over that time, the ED will need 5 fuel filters @ $50 each and 20 oil changes that cost about $20 more each if you're buying your own stuff and doing your own (my first 6 were free, so I haven't paid a dime for maintenance), and you'll use about 50 gallons of DEF @ $3 a gallon. So all in total, you spent $1,000 extra on maintenance for the ED and saved $7k in fuel. Hard to argue with that. If fuel goes to $4 a gallon, the savings to go $11k. Truck is paying for itself and then some.

I am not planning to delete the exhaust system on mine. It will void the lifetime powertrain warranty that came with my truck. The later-model EDs do not appear to have the same amount of emissions-related issues that the 2014 and 2015 models had, although I wish they were all deleted.

Go over to ram1500diesel.com forums and check. My mpg is not high for the ED for anyone who is driving conservatively and trying to squeeze the most performance out of her.

Interesting indeed. The 1/2 ton and lower classes diesel trucks are new to me. So I’m drawing from my experience with the bigger 3/4 ton all the way up to class 8 big rigs. The aftertreatment systems are so much of an issue, oil field companies were buying fleets of 16-17 fords and rams and shipping them to where I used to work to have them fully deleted. But then again, your talking about high idle time trucks. I’ve even fully deleted a few class 8 trucks as well. I honestly didn’t realize the ecodiesel was getting that good of fuel economy. The only other issue I know of is the switch style shifter. I know there was a recall on it. But don’t know how many vehicle it affected and what not.

Personally, I think the ram would be better served with a larger, and/or more powerful engine. I just personally feel that a diesel powered pick up should be able to out tow/pull its gas counterpart. That, and the manufacturer of the engine that is powering an American truck, a simple man like me should be able to pronounce.

With the babymax, it should have been a V type engine to properly wear the duramax badge. A 5 liter V6 would of been perfect; a 6.6 duramax with 2 cylinders chopped off.

Yeah they should have built a 5 liter v-6 so they could have a fuel hog motor that burns the same amount of fuel as a big truck with a fraction of the power... like Nissan did... what a flop.

Your ideas seem a little well I would think shooting from the hip, I think gm and ram put a lot more into product and market research than you ever will. Nissan made a mistake with the 5.0 cummins, sure it might be a decent little motor, but in my experience with one why not buy a big truck.

Not shooting from the hip at all actually. 5 liter V6; 60 degree V6, DOHC gear drive with 4 valves per cylinder, factory installed lift pump with a CP4 injection pump and a high pressure (40k psi or better) common rail fuel system with pezio injectors; 7 hole nozzles and 10 plus injections per power stroke. Compound turbo system using 2 VGT turbos, an intercooling system along with an after cooler. Lastly, an economy mode and tow mode that actually changes fuel injection timing, and quantity. An automated 8 speed transmission that again changes its programming depends nf uppon mode selected.

The same engine building and designing principles can be applied to smaller production Diesel engines that are being applied to new class 8 truck engines, and competition Diesel engines. We have learned that the key to power and economy is high fuel pressure, small hole nozzles, and more injection sequences during an injection cycle. Due to fuel atomization, you increase the total surface area of the fuel, thus increasing flame front propigation and a complete burn of the fuel. This increases power production and fuel economy because your burning all of what your injecting. The more injection sequences per power stroke prevents fuel pooling and makes the engine run smoother and quieter with the ability to make more power.

The 5 liter cummins was presented to Toyota, ram, GM, and ford. Nissan took it because they wanted to break in to the exploding diesel market. It’s an engineering master piece, but not all that it was expected to be.

Instead of running a VGT turbo or a compound system; it has 2 completely separate turbos, one small one big. They have an exhaust diverted/direction puck do hickie. As requested power and engine rpm change, the truck runs on the small turbo. The do-hickie will start to move and direct some of the exhaust in to the big turbo; in effect spooling it up. Mid to high RPM, the small turbo has no exhaust flow and the big turbo has 100% exhaust flow. A simple VGT turbo or dual VGT compound set up would be much more controllable and efficient. Shoot, conventional twin turbos using smaller VGT turbos would be great. Also, is has a hot side EGR, that cures almost all the EGR valve failures and a EGR cooler failures. But to add a air flow control valve in the intake system so that during steady state operation it can mostly shut of fresh air flow , increase EGR flow to lower tail pipe pollutants, and gain slightly better fuel economy, and slightly lower REGEN cycle times. The base engine was a power generation engine for cummins. Nissan and cummins shared the cost and engineering teams to develop it in to what you have today...over the course of like 10 years. Again, over engineered and complex solutions to common problems. Add is the emense sales and add campaign plus the reputation cummins has for their line engines, and how proud Nissan is of their trucks (over priced when comparably optioned); the result is ether you love it or you feel let down by it.

You can't idle modern diesels like in the day. I used to idle my diesels 8 hrs a day in 112 Arizona heat on my jobsites no problems. Todays diesels would never properly regen.

Besides anyone that believes Oil Companies follow Federal Emission Regs, well that just makes me laugh.

It’s not just oil field companies, it’s electric companies, rail road, logging companies. I’ve seen owner/operators of class 8 over the road semi trucks have their engines fully deleted.

Typical Duramax for you.. Can't beat em!!!

Congrats!

The only mistake Ram made on the Ecodiesel IMHO is the under-sized cooling system. Works fine with no load and works fine towing on flat ground, but has a tendancy to get warm if you want to pull your max rated towing capacity up in the mountains at high speed. If they had increased cooling capacity to where you could tow 7,000 lbs up a mountain at 50-60 mph without overheating, it would be the perfect engine. That being said, I tow my 6k lbs TT just fine at 65-70 mph on the freeway. It's pretty stress-free with a good WD/sway hitch.

Most half ton owners are not interested in towing really heavy stuff. A 7,000 lbs TT is about all you really want to put behind any half ton, regardless of what the tow rating is. Sure, folks tow more than that all the time (they do it with the ED as well), but for the most part that's a pretty hefty load for a half ton pickup and I would advise going to the 3/4 ton market if you're going to regularly be towing a big un-aerodynamic box weighing more than that.

I will say that when I'm towing with the ED, I don't feel like the 8k lbs tow rating is an issue. The low-end torque is better than most any half ton gasser and you can feel it too. Cooling issues aside, I don't think half ton gassers really tow better than the ED. My dad has a 5.7 Tundra that tow the 6k lbs TT with about the same ease as my ED.

Most modern Diesel engines, especially in the 3/4 ton-1ton trucks can haul-pull more than what the chassis is rated for. The duramax engine is used in the 3/4 ton trucks up to the 5500 chassis trucks. The 6.7 powerstroke is used in the F250 on up to the F750. So it would stand to reason that the ED and baby-max could punch above their weight class as well. It’s the chassis the vehicle is in that limits it.

An engines ability is probably the least of the equation when it comes to tow ratings. Breaks, suspension, chassis is where it comes from

I don't disagree. My comment was really related to someone above who said they thought the ED was under-sized and that Chevy should put a 5.0 Duramax in the 1500. I would politely disagree with both of those. ED is sized correctly (cooling system aside), and GM should put whatever size Duramax that allows 8k minimum tow capacity and the best mpg possible. Perfect combo in a half ton.

I am not familiar with this engine but in the past the 6.0 and the 7.3 Navistar engines that were put in the 3500 were set up far differently than the same block they put in the larger trucks. The larger trucks had much higher torque and lower rpm limits.

A 3.0 diesel can be made to do more but not the same engine that Dodge puts in their ED.


An alternative to the ED and the baby Duramax is the other 3 liters out there. The Jeep, BMW and Mercedes all pull good. My daughter drives a 7 passenger GL320 CDI which has a towing capacity of 7500. Its not as good on fuel but it will get 26 mpg at 70 mph most of the time. I've driven the BMW X5 35D which had 7 passenger seating and all wheel drive and it was fairly lively. It has a towing capacity just under 7000 pounds.

The 7.3 was all the same. They came off the same assembly line... international made them. And I’m almost positive it’s the same thing with the 6.0 powerstroke as well

There were several versions of the 7.3 and 6.0 made by Navistar. Both setup for the applications they were intended for. I believe the T444e had different specs over the years (7.3) but the highest rated hp it ever had was 230 @ 675tq.
The 6.0 VT365 was also made to work as a higher torque lower rpm motor than the engines Ford put in their 3/4 and one tons.

For those interested, I did some towing with the the Canyon Diesel one was my 16 Cargo Trailer I also towed my 492v back from storage at Lake Amistad.
At no time did I feel unsafe or that the truck under performed. Whith my boat mileage on the low side was 13mpg at 80mph (I typically only tow at 70mph 80 was see capabilty) once a stayed closer to 70mph it was 14.5mpg after filling up and hand figuring. My 6.7 Cummins 3500 Dually at best gets 16.5 mpg towing my boat. The exhaust brake worked well and had plenty of holding power on downgrades. The only issue seems to be the intergrated brake control, I am taking it to dealer tomorrow for them to check out (it seems to not be working properly). I only towed my cargo trailer about 20 miles just for kicks. For obviuos reasons as far as width goes I will add some mirror extenstions if I will be towing the cargo trailer more with the Canyon.
The truck held speed well and droped 1 to 2 mph on inclines and once the down shift occured went right back to the set cruise control speed. As expected the high end punch is less for obvious reasons from bigger diesels. However overtaking another vehicle from 65mph towing my boat was not an issue. It rode well and the suspension was solid the truck has plenty of stopping power. I have no doubt it can handle its max towing capacity both pulling and stopping.

I took a friend with me to Amistad and by the end of the trip he kept saying how supprised he was with the truck.

All in all, time will tell how I will like the truck. But so far its good. The only thing I will change to my previous posts is that I would use the Canyon Diesel to tow my boat anywhere I wanted to go no matter the distance.

Did you tow the boat in top/6th gear?

What rpm does it run towing the boat at 70?