2026 RAM 2500 Heavy Duty: Gas HEMI or Cummins Diesel

*Starting MSRP is the Tradesman’s figure at launch for the 2026 model year, excluding destination.

The available engine is where the 2500 earns its reputation. The 6.7L Cummins Turbo Diesel is a High Output inline-six making 430 horsepower and a massive 1,075 lb-ft of torque, also through an 8-speed automatic. That torque is what lets the truck get a heavy trailer moving and hold a grade without downshifting all day, and it is the engine to spec if towing is the whole point of the purchase. The Cummins is offered on every trim except the Power Wagon, which is built around the gas HEMI for its off-road mission.

Which engine should you pick? If your loads stay within the gas truck’s rating and you want the lower entry price and simpler upkeep, the HEMI V8 is plenty of engine. If you tow near the top of the range, tow often, or want the truck to feel unbothered by a heavy trailer, the Cummins diesel and its 1,075 lb-ft are worth the step up. To see which engine is in the trucks on the ground right now, browse our RAM 2500 inventory near Anderson.

What 20,000 lbs covers in practice: a large fifth-wheel or gooseneck trailer, a loaded equipment trailer carrying a mid-size tractor or a skid steer with attachments, or a stacked car hauler running two vehicles, all sit within that ceiling for a properly equipped diesel. On the payload side, close to 3,930 lbs handles a bed full of gravel, a slide-in truck camper, or a welding rig and its supplies without running out of rating. The honest move every time is to weigh the trailer and the load the way you actually run them, not the dry weight from a brochure, and check that against the rating on your truck. Because the exact tow and payload numbers shift so much by configuration, the surest way to match a 2500 to your heaviest job is to bring us the trailer and load you tow and let us point you at the truck rated for it.

The 8-foot box is the one for hauling full sheets of plywood flat, running long pipe or conduit, or fitting a slide-in camper, and it adds more than 17 cubic feet over the 6-foot-4 box. The shorter box makes the truck easier to park and maneuver, which is why it pairs so often with the roomier cabs.

Sitting apart from the rest of the lineup is the Power Wagon, the factory off-road heavy-duty truck. It is built on the gas HEMI V8 and set up to leave the pavement, with up to 14.2 inches of ground clearance and a front locking differential that ties the front wheels together for traction where a normal 4x4 would spin. If your work or play takes the truck well off the road, the Power Wagon is the 2500 aimed squarely at that.

Which trim should you choose? Use this as a first cut, then confirm against current inventory:

Per-trim pricing moves with configuration and current factory programs, so instead of a number that will be wrong by next month, check our current RAM 2500 specials for the offers in effect right now.

On the safety side, RAM builds a solid floor into every 2500. Adaptive Cruise Control and a ParkView rear back-up camera are standard on all nine trims, its gridlines bending with the wheel to make backing to a hitch or a loading dock easier. The upper trims, the Power Wagon, Rebel, Laramie, Limited, and Limited Longhorn, add Blind-Spot Monitoring with trailer coverage, Pedestrian Detection, and Rear Cross Path detection as standard. On the lower trims those same aids come as part of an available Safety Group, which also brings Forward Collision Mitigation with automatic emergency braking and Active Lane Management. A 360-degree surround-view camera is available for tight maneuvering and hitching.

Blind-Spot Monitoring with trailer coverage is worth calling out for a truck that tows: the watch zone extends along the length of the trailer rather than stopping at the bed, so the warning follows the whole rig through traffic and around tight turns.

Crash-test ratings for the 2500 depend on the cab you choose. The Crew Cab earns a 4-star overall rating from the federal NHTSA program; the Regular Cab and the Mega Cab carry no overall score because NHTSA has not crash-tested those cab configurations, which is not the same as a low result. If a published star rating matters to you, the Crew Cab is the one that carries it, and it is worth pulling the current NHTSA detail for the exact configuration you have in mind.

10 years or 100,000 miles of powertrain coverage is the term to weigh against any other heavy-duty truck you are cross-shopping, since it backs the exact parts a working truck leans on hardest: the engine and the drivetrain.

For contractors, farmers, and business owners running a work truck, we can talk through the financing options that fit a commercial purchase alongside the retail path. Every new truck we sell also carries ownership perks that keep the cost down after the sale: the first oil change is on us, car washes stay free for life for the original owner, and Saturday service hours cover the weeks a working truck cannot spare a weekday in the shop.