Is there a particular reason you went with the 2.5s over the 3.0s? This is all largely daydreaming now unfortunately, I made a crack at our last oil change about the garbage oem tires that we keep replacing and repairing and swapping them out with a set of 35" MT Baja Boss all terrains. She spent the next five minutes hearing about how they're seeing major parts failures from guys running "big boy 35s" and how some poor schmuck put 35s on his 3500 and 7k miles later he had to replace his tranny out of pocket because 35s void your warranty. We did a little light off-roading a week ago and some tires and suspension upgrades would have gone a long way (so would some lockers) but she's now convinced that 35s break trucks. /end rant
If the dealer voided the warranty of a 3500 that's designed to pull 20K+ daily over his installation of 35" tires, run, don't walk from that dealership. Sounds like a BS, made up story to me. I have customers all day running 35s and 37s on Ram 2500/3500 and Ford F250/F350 with no issues on drivetrain (even driveshaft) warranties with modified suspension. It all comes down to the dealer.
On my brand new, well, 1 year old Super duty,
- I have sun-fade on BOTH of my headlights on a year-old truck.
- My Driver Door won't lock: I hit the lock button and you can open the driver door. You'll see a message on the console-screen "alarm will sound if not unlocked by key fob within 10 seconds". I can manually lock it, lock it with the Key fob and button on the door and the lock-post actuates but you can always open the driver door from the outside handle. This is the MOST frustrating issue.
- Telescoping wheel doesn't work fore/aft, only tilt up and down.
So i hear from the dealership:
"Hello - since you added an aftermarket light bar, you'll need to come pick up the truck and remove the light bar and/or bumper (or we can remove the bumper but you're on the hook for $900 in labor to do so), then return it to us to replace your headlights. Secondly, you have an aftermarket stereo. To replace your lock actuator, you'll need to take your truck to the stereo shop and have all aftermarket components removed, including the sound deadening, for our tech to access the actuator".
After too much time with the advisor and several calls to the service manager, they agreed to remove the light bar and bend the brackets to clear the grill charging me $180 to perform this task. Instead of removing the few Allen head bolts that secure the sound deadening panel in the door, the tech took a hole-saw to it and replaced the actuator. Then, i found the cover to my JL Audio C3-650 component crossover speaker under my driver's seat.
Guess it's off to the stereo shop to have them fix what the dealer couldn't' figure out. On the bright side, my Driver door now locks, my telescoping wheel telescopes and my headlights are new. Overall, i need to toss this one in the win column, i think.
Anyway, YMMV but some dealerships suck, others make it much easier. Modifying vehicles is almost guaranteed to cause you an issue at the dealership in my experience.