AZjeff
$50 Site Donor 2023
I rented this truck at the Pittsburgh airport to help with the process of clearing a bunch of stuff out of my 89 year old mom's house. We got in at 10 PM, not the best time to try and learn a new vehicle. The Limited apparently is the top trim with all the toys, 5.7 Hemi, air suspension, big sunroof, leather, 22 inch wheels, etc with 10k miles. I had no previous experience in late model Dodge trucks. After checking for damage with my phone flashlight we threw our bags in the back seat and got the first surprise, BIG running boards drop down and out from the rockers when you open a door. These things are shin biters and I'm sure you'd get used to them but after a few miles on wet dirt roads they also loaded up with mud on the top surface and were just annoying. Probably a way to disable them I just didn't look. So got it fired up with the button and was blown away with the huge display in the center stack, it must be 7 inches wide and 12 inches tall. We found all the needed controls and exited the airport. First surprise was couldn't make high beams come on, had to find the right combo of dash switch location and display choice to understand the auto high beam dimmer function. The auto dimmer works about 90% OK, the one thing it gets wrong is hitting the highs too soon when passing another car or big truck. another interesting thing was when approaching some new speed limit signs that are white background it thought they were oncoming traffic and dimmed then immediately switched back to high then back and forth a number of times until I hit low beam on the stalk. Needs some work. The LED lights are amazing though, I think they move with the steering and the highs go out a long way. The back-up camera lines and 360 surround camera turn lines aren't accurate enough to count on.
The 8 speed programming was about perfect, the displacement on demand invisible except for the ECO light on the dash and the 5.7 has some serious pull when you stand on it. Start/stop felt strange but didn't cause any problems. Averaged just over 19 mpg for 400 miles of 60/40 highway/town&country indicated including some dirt backroad driving. The gear selector is a big chrome knob on the dash where the key used to be, different but why not take up less space? The leather seats were fine, no problems with getting things adjusted and the 2 hour drive from the airport was comfortable. More road noise than I'd expect for the top trim truck. Not an audiophile but the H/K system sounded nice, FM reception seemed weak and the Sirius radio wasn't activated. Didn't care for the NAV display but didn't try to change it. The center console is huge and seems like they tried to make it too versatile.
Now about the 285/45-22 Goodyear Eagle Touring tires. All was fine until I pulled out to pass a car for the first time on the highway, as I changed lanes the truck stopped moving left momentarily when the tires hit the pavement joint in the center of the road then when I gave it a bit more steering it jumped across the joint and required steering correction back to the right. What the heck?? Same thing coming back to the right lane. Found the tire pressures in the menu and they were all at 37, 1 psi over placard I learned when I checked in the morning. It didn't do this every lane change but enough times I had to be ready for it and was totally unacceptable. The truck drove straight and the tires showed no unusual wear on close inspection later so it must be a combination of the low profile (stupid on a truck anyway) and the shape of some pavement joints. No way would I live with that if it were my truck.
The air suspension is fun to play with and must have around 4 inches of range, at high and low extremes the ride is harsh. 4 days isn't enough time to get comfortable with the dash controls and the big screen but it just seems overkill and unnecessary and many functions seem to be duplicated on the touch screen and a real button. All engine functions are accessible in the cluster. No doubt lots of controls and functions I never touched. Engine bay seems uncrowded with less stuff than you expect in today's reality.
Overall nice truck to drive except the tires and a very livable interior. The drivetrain is smoother and more seamless than the previous '16 Chevy and '18 Titan I have now. I could easily live with the drivetrain in a much lower trim level. I can see why people like the RAM trucks.
The 8 speed programming was about perfect, the displacement on demand invisible except for the ECO light on the dash and the 5.7 has some serious pull when you stand on it. Start/stop felt strange but didn't cause any problems. Averaged just over 19 mpg for 400 miles of 60/40 highway/town&country indicated including some dirt backroad driving. The gear selector is a big chrome knob on the dash where the key used to be, different but why not take up less space? The leather seats were fine, no problems with getting things adjusted and the 2 hour drive from the airport was comfortable. More road noise than I'd expect for the top trim truck. Not an audiophile but the H/K system sounded nice, FM reception seemed weak and the Sirius radio wasn't activated. Didn't care for the NAV display but didn't try to change it. The center console is huge and seems like they tried to make it too versatile.
Now about the 285/45-22 Goodyear Eagle Touring tires. All was fine until I pulled out to pass a car for the first time on the highway, as I changed lanes the truck stopped moving left momentarily when the tires hit the pavement joint in the center of the road then when I gave it a bit more steering it jumped across the joint and required steering correction back to the right. What the heck?? Same thing coming back to the right lane. Found the tire pressures in the menu and they were all at 37, 1 psi over placard I learned when I checked in the morning. It didn't do this every lane change but enough times I had to be ready for it and was totally unacceptable. The truck drove straight and the tires showed no unusual wear on close inspection later so it must be a combination of the low profile (stupid on a truck anyway) and the shape of some pavement joints. No way would I live with that if it were my truck.
The air suspension is fun to play with and must have around 4 inches of range, at high and low extremes the ride is harsh. 4 days isn't enough time to get comfortable with the dash controls and the big screen but it just seems overkill and unnecessary and many functions seem to be duplicated on the touch screen and a real button. All engine functions are accessible in the cluster. No doubt lots of controls and functions I never touched. Engine bay seems uncrowded with less stuff than you expect in today's reality.
Overall nice truck to drive except the tires and a very livable interior. The drivetrain is smoother and more seamless than the previous '16 Chevy and '18 Titan I have now. I could easily live with the drivetrain in a much lower trim level. I can see why people like the RAM trucks.