New truck review

[BuggyMaster]

I'm bored. If you are bored and considering a new truck but don't know which one to get, you my appreciate this. Bear in mind as you read this LONG READ that I am not an uber fan of any one particular brand. I am currently bored so this may be a long read but I hope it is helpful so anyone out truck shopping. I buy a new truck ever year (or about) and try not to buy the same thing twice unless I really like it. I am a born and raised GM guy. The only major (in my opinion) truck manufacturer that I haven't owned is a Ford but that is because I was clearly educated when I waivered into Mustang land on how bad a Ford's resale is. There just isn't anything I like about the Ford trucks and thinking on how bad I ate it in resale as well as how things work in Ford land, I just can't see myself even trying one.

I have, however, owned several GM trucks, several Nissan Titan's, a newer Toyota Tundra, and as of about 2 weeks ago, a 2009 Dodge Ram Big Horn Hemi.

I used to think the same about Dodge as I did Ford until I owned one. I first bought a Viper, and absolutely loved it. In fact, of the 65 or so vehicles that I have owned, that is the one I miss the most. About a year ago, I bought a Challenger SRT8 and I REALLY loved it too. In fact, I can nit-pick a vehicle apart in short order, typically. There is only one that totally satisfied be, and that was in fact that Challenger. Other than the price, there was nothing I didn't like about it. That, my friends, is a tall order. Hard times fell and I had to get rid of it though.

Point of all that is when it came time to shop for a truck, I decided that based on my past recent experience, I'd give the Ram a look.

I was currently driving an 08 Toyota Tundra with the big engine and 6-spd tranny. Owned it for nearly a year an a half. Only thing I didn't like about that truck was the look just didn't sit right with me. I liked the form factor of the SR5 double cab, just the front of it didn't sit right with me visually. Otherwise, can't really complain but it was getting ready to come out of warranty and needed tires so I figured if I could get the deal I wanted, I'd consider getting a new truck.

Here are my thoughts on the truck models I have experience with that are available today:

Chevy Silverado:
I have owned several Silverados but the trips to the dealerships where you come out of there feeling like you burdoned them finally got to me. Never mind the fact that I was having to go to the dealership to begin with for warranty work, but when you felt like you weren't welcome there, or the vehicle came out with more problems than when it went it, I just wasn't going to stand for it any more. It is because of this kind of crap that I started looking elsewhere to begin with. I never felt like Chevy gave a crap about how aweful there dealers were.

I did, however, go give the new Silverado's a shot. I was absolutely amazed when on the test drive I discovered that the truck still had a damn 4-spd auto trans. They still make those? Un-believable. Power? What power? Sadly the truck just had no nuts. In a world where 400-ish HP is starting to be common place, the majority of their trucks are still underpowered and feel like it and the four speed trans wasn't helping. The exception is the Sierra Denali. I will say that THAT machine was pretty damn sweet and felt like a truck should. Plenty of power. However, if you want that kind of power, you gotta break out the fat wallet and until recently, you could only get that power with the Denali which also required you to have AWD all the time. They finally made it available in the Silverado, but pretty much not without you having to break out the wallet and get the LTZ high dollar package. Did I mention that the truck STILL looks like it has since the late 90's? I know they feel they did a redesign on it but it still felt dated. Not to mention that it had a loose/cheap feel to it when driving. Put all this together and there were way more cons than pros and at the price it took to get the proper power....no thanks. Sorry guys. I love ya but I just can't put out that kind of cash for something that fails to excite me so much.

Nissan Titan:

I have to say that of all the trucks, the Titan was the one that always felt right to me. What a lot of people don't understand about them is although they are only rated at 317 hp, they have 380ish foot pound of torque. If you understand engines, you know that the only way you get that is to have your power range in your low to mid RPM range. Under regular driving conditions, that truck was pulling the whole time. Ya, it would fade off towards the top end but where's most of your driving done? Probably the best designed drivetrain of all of them. A fantastic combination. Looks wise, they were always a favorite to me (personal opinion). They carried an agressive, muscular look, and the truck has a great feel to it. What I didn't like about it is that if you wanted the toys, you had to get the high dollar LE trimmed truck. I like to have NAV and such but had to buy the upper-ended truck to get it and that forces you to get leather which at the time forced you into captains chairs...i.e. no bench. If you are like me and you like the bench because there are plenty of times when you need that extra seating, this is kinda a drag. Still though, I liked the truck enough to buy it three times in a row. When it came time to buy a new truck this time around, I did in fact shop it. In fact, I went to go buy one..actually two, and both sold by the time I got there. I wasn't quite getting the deal I wanted anyways, so I considered this to be something saying maybe I should not get another Titan. The damn things were selling like hotcakes though. Since Dodge is building them for Nissan starting next year (which many including myself felt was a mistake), Nissan was clearing existing stock out.

Toyota Tundra:

This was my current vehicle that I was trading in to get a new one. I have to give Toyota credit. The Tundra is an awesome truck. Other than the looks thing that I mentioned earlier, they are a pretty damn good truck. I did have to take it in for warranty work once though for a slow returning gas pedal! You'd floor it to pass someone and it didn't come instantly back. I understand they now currently have a recall on them. Powerwise, Toyota did awefully good. The truck has a decent torque curve but more importantly, they went with a 6-spd auto trans and a 4.30 rearend combination and that truck really made you feel like you had all that HP at your disposal. It was always in the right gear at the right time.

There are two things about Toyota that really stand out about them:

The first is the fact that you can get any combnation of options you want. Want a front bench cloth seat and still be able to get Navigation? No problem. Although they have designated trim levels, those trim levels did not put a damper on your ability to get whatever options you wanted. All I wanted was all the power and all the gadgets without all the BS in between. In Toyota land it can happen and it did happen for me. I wound up with the big drivetrain in an SR5 trim with all the technology gadgets..out the door for $30k even. That's with no tax savings for my trade either. Killer deal as far as I was concerned.

The second is that Toyota somehow managed to give the best of both worlds when considering bed length vs interior space. Mine was a quad cab. I have to say that I got my cake and to eat it too. I had the full 6.5ft bed and the amount of space available in the back of the cabin area was not a cramped feel. Felt nearly as open as the crew cabs that I have had.

One thing I should mention is that although you can get a Tundra in any option configuration you like, seems to me I remember that actually ordering one like that would be a difficult task. If I remember right I was finally given the impression that the dealers have to take what Toyota sends them and if you want exactly what you are looking for you have to pick your dealer and have them find what you want via a dealer trade. I like to be able to find what I want (or easily order) and deal directly with the dealer that had what I wanted. Toyota does not make that easy.

Other than the physical looks of the truck, (which weren't totally bad I just never bonded with those looks), I can't really think of anything bad to say about it. I'll put the spoiler in now and just tell you that the Tundra is probably the best truck on the market overall. Add to that the consideration of the resale value which we'll talk about next.

2009 Gen 4 Dodge Ram Hemi

Lastly, this brings us back to the Dodge Gen 4 Ram 1500. As mentioned, with my recent Mopar experience, it was worthy of having a look. The first one I saw was (unknown to me at the time) wearing a leveling kit and some Nitto Grappler 20's that the dealer had put on the truck and of all the trucks I looked at, it is the only one that got me kinda excited at first glance. Man that truck looked good. I didn't realize at the time that they didn't all look that good and in fact when I questioned the salesman if those tires were an option, he said they were. He did later reveal to me that this was something they added on along with the leveling kit.....at a cost of just $4200. No kidding.

We took the truck out for a test drive and it ran pretty good. The slight shimmy in the steering wheel on the highway that some have noted was there but I attributed that to the tires and leveling kit. I now know that that didn't matter. The truck I wound up with does the same thing. Annoying for some, but not a deal breaker for me. The other thing that I didn't like about the truck was the fact that you can't appear to get a solid black/charcoal cloth interior. They have those grey, nearly beige, inserts. Doesn't look too aweful bad but I am a black on black kinda guy and wish they would allow full charcoal interior. Not a deal breaker either as my Tundra was full black on black and I wanted to at least feel like I was driving a new truck from a looks stand point. I really loved the fact that I could get back my front bench seating.

I couldn't come to terms with that dealer $$ wise and after the two Nissan trucks were sold out from under me, I decided to try one last time to strike a deal with another dealer who had something I was interested in. Lo and behold, a deal was struck. Amazingly, my Tundra that I pad $30k for OTD brought $25k real money in trade after a year and half of owning it AND 25k well earned miles! You read that right, that vehicle took the resale value record for me. VERY impressive. The dealer knocked a ton of cash off of the Hemi Crew Cab Big Horn 4x4 and the deal was done. I've now put on about 600 miles.

Looks wise, I think the truck looks pretty good. I'm still getting used to the profile of it but that's probably because I went from a quad cab to a crew cab. It has a boxy profile to me as of now. The Titan for some reason still looks the best to me but the Dodge still looks good.

There are two things about the Dodge that fall short of awesome and could potentially be deal breakers for people shopping a new truck and I think Dodge dropped the ball on these:

5-spd auto trans instead of 6 is the first. All that power and it feels no faster than the lesser Nissan Titan. In fact, under normal driving conditions, it actually feels like the Nissan is stronger. Dodge's power comes in, and comes in strong, at about 3500 rpm. From this point on it's flat out hauling butt however that's not where your normal driving range is at. The Toyota did it right by going with a 6-spd tranny. As mentioned, at all times you felt like you were driving with that much HP. You only feel that in the dodge when your stomping the gas and winding it out. Granted, I have the 3.55 rear end, the truck I initially test drove had the 3.92 and there wasn't much difference. I will say though that driving it around in Tow/Haul mode makes it a totally different feeling truck in a good way. Your shift points are raised thus keeping you in a higher power range and it feels much better.

MDS - Now me personally, I don't mind this but I can see where it is clearly going to be a deal breaker for some guys...especially guys who like a truck that sounds like a truck. I can tell every time, without looking at the indicator in the dash, when MDS is active. You can hear it and you can feel it. I can only imagine how crappy it must sound with a flow master on. Mopar should have an on-off owner configurable option for this in the information center that allows you to choose whether or not you want to use MDS. If you like a nice loud after market exhaust...this might not be the truck for you.

Those two things out of the way, the truck has a fantastic feel to it from a driving perspective. Where the Chevy felt loose, the Dodge feels like a manly truck and it is very comfortable. I do wish I had got the adjustable pedals because for my driving position, the seat has to be pretty close to the steering wheel and more specifically, my knees to the dash. (I'm 5'8") Had I got the adjustable pedals, I could sit farther back and just move the pedals towards my feet. Also, the brake pedal position is a little wierd to me but that may be something I need to get used to a bit more.

If you are a technology kind of guy, Mopar's MyGig with Nav is the best in the industry for factory head unit's. I know this from when I had my Challenger. Unfortunately, this truck didn't have that option. I wasn't worried about it as I figured I'd just get it from ebay or something and put it in later. Mopar is pretty easy to do that.....if you got the freaking cash! Unfortunately, I'm not the only one that knows their nav is the best around and there seem to be a million other people that had the same idea. Getting my hands on one for what I figured I should have to pay just isn't happening and it's driving me nuts. Ya they're out there but there's a bunch of guys making a living off of buying them up and then flipping them out on epay. I'm about at my breaking point of just saying heck with it and caving to their high dollar demands. The two things i miss most off of my Tundra are the NAV and the BlueTooth.

Let's also not forget the lifetime warranty on the Dodge. Granted, I don't ever keep a truck that long and this warranty will kill my resale, it is an awesome thing for people who DO keep their truck for its entire life.

All that said, I will repeat that for me and my experience in truck owning, Toyota has the best overall truck available with the Tundra. If I could undo my deal and go back to my truck, I probably would but since Mopar doesn't have the "money back gaurantee" that GM is currently offering (which I feel may plunge them back into bankruptcy), I'll keep it for a year and see how well it grows on me. It is overall a pretty nice truck with a good powerplant only matched in regular trims by Toyota. For me, it goes Tundra, Ram, Titan, then Silverado as the pecking order.

Sorry if any of you disagree with any of this or if you got bored. I was bored and figure new truck shoppers may come across this and want one person's educated opinion. Ya, a lot of it's subjective but some things can't be denied.

P.S. Still looking for a freaking MyGig NAV for a 2009 at a reasonable price...look me up!

[24evanwilson]

holy crap!!

[bige]

now that I have woken back up, I have a 2002 silverado 2500hd with the 8.1 gas, allison automatic, crew cab, and 3.73 rear.

I have had it since 2003 and not a lick of trouble. it gets 9 mpg loaded or empty and the tow haul mode of the allison is great.

[24evanwilson]

i ♥ dodge rams idk why though

[bigs]

I'm a ram 1500 fan i love mine

[BuggyMaster]

what year is yours?

[bigs]

mine is a 2005 i was always a jeep guy but i needed a truck so i went with a 1500 but kinda wish i had a 2500

[bigs]

you can see it in the pics of my buggy. don't pay attention to the big dent in the side I had the truck for four days and my wife backed into it (don't worry somehow it was my fault) just didn't get time to get it fixed