2019 Ram 1500 ReviewFirst DriveEdmunds
DAN EDMUNDS: We're here in Texas
on an overcast drizzly day, and we're going to drive
this 2019 Ram 1500. We really liked the last one,
but could the new version be any better? We're going to find out. Sure, the styling is
different, but there's a lot of significant changes
going on with this truck. For one, the
wheelbase, the length between the front
and rear axles, is a full four inches longer.
And they've put all of
that into cab space. The bed sides are an
inch and a half taller, which helps smooth the
airflow around the truck, and also gives you a bigger box. You'd think that would
make a heavier truck, all that extra metal,
but actually, this thing is 255 pounds lighter
compared to last year. And that's because they're using
a lot more high strength steel in the frame, and in the body.
That should add up to
better fuel economy, too. So we're going to hop
in, drive around Texas. We're going to get
on the back roads, we're going to get
on some freeways. We're even going to catch
a trailer on behind, and see what this thing can do.
Let's go. This new Ram has the link
coil rear suspension, which is unique to the
full size pickup world. It really made our
last generation truck ride nice and smooth. And this truck is even better.
It has all of the basic
architecture of before, but they've refined
the shock absorbers, and they've got
progressive rate coil springs in the back
instead of straight rates. And that allows a
smooth ride, but also, more payload, and towing. This can tow 20%
more than before. That's 12,750 pounds now, if
you're keeping score at home.
Yeah, this thing's
a real workhorse. We're not towing
right now, obviously. But the engine and transmission
was never in doubt. This has the 5.7 Liter hemi V8.
Makes the same horsepower
and torque as last year. And it's also backed by an 8
speed automatic transmission that we've seen before. They've really improved
the shift timing. There's a lot more available
choices to the computer, depending on the situation.
So far, we're just
driving on smooth roads, we're not driving up any grades. So I don't expect this to be
a very difficult situation for the truck. But it's nice and smooth. All the shifts are
nice and crisp.
There's no shock at all. It's very pleasant. And listen to that. As someone once said, power.
I really like driving this
truck and it's not just because of the power, and
this comfortable seat. What's really great
is the steering. I can really feel that the
truck knows where it's going. It responds really
easily to commands.
I think the steering
is a little quicker than it was in the
last generation, but not sharp or abrupt. There's just the right
amount of effort. It's not known, it's
not overbearing. But at the same time,
it returns to center, and really knows straight
ahead very well, which is really more important in
steering than you might think.
One of the neat things
about this truck having linked coil
rear suspension is Ram can offer air
suspension-- a four corner air suspension system
allows the truck to be dropped to a
lower height when you're cruising on the freeway
for better fuel economy. Even lower than that
to help ease loading. Or you can raise it up
as much as two inches if you're off road, and
need to clear an obstacle. It's pretty nice.
One thing I'm noticing
here as I spend more time behind the wheel is
the visibility out the front is really good. They've reprofiled the
hood and the headlights. It seems like I can see the
corners a little bit better than the last generation truck. But when I look out
the back, my view is a little bit more
narrow, and slot like, because they've raised
the pickup box an inch and a half, which is great
for cargo carrying capacity, but it does show
up in the rear view mirror just a little bit more.
Everyone has a backup
camera these days, and it's great when you're
trying to hook up a trailer. This one has a twist. There's this zoom button here. When you press it, you
really can see the hitch up close, which is
great when you're trying to do that final
last part of a hookup.
Also, we've got tow
haul button here. And here's where you can
turn off the parking sensor. Because when you got
your trailer hooked up, it's always going
to detect something. So turn it off here to
shut off the system.
Now we've got a trailer
latched on behind. One of the towing features I
really like on this new Ram is the blind spot warning
system that accounts for the length of the trailer. And unlike other such systems,
it does it automatically. In other words, you don't
have to measure your trailer.
You just have to make
a couple of turns and it'll learn how
long your trailer is. In this case, this trailer,
according to the blind spot monitoring system,
is 20 feet long. So it's going to add another
20 feet into its warning to account for the
length of the trailer when I make a lane change. This truck has an integrated
trailer brake controller right here.
And it's hooked up right now. And one of the
many screens that's available on the dashboard
through the buttons on the steering wheel is
a trailer towing screen, which shows how aggressive
the trailer brake gain is set. And that's something you want
to adjust so that your trailer brakes don't lock
up at the same time, so they do what you
want them to do. And so you can see exactly
what that is right here.
You can make adjustments here. And if you need to stabilize
the trailer that's swaying, you can give it a
pinch right there, and you put the
brakes on manually. There are center
consoles, and then there's the center console
in the 2019 Ram 1500. I mean, look at this thing.
It opens up here, this
slides back and forth, this piece goes all
the way through. You can put a laptop in there. There's a 110 volt
outlet in there. There's two USBs,
and two USB-Cs.
There's another USB in here. And on the back, there's
two more USB, and two more USB-Cs for the back passengers. I mean, this is amazing. You can put a phone in here.
There's wireless
charging available that will work when the phone
is in this position, where you can actually see it. And there's a CD slot,
if you still do that. I mean, you could live
at the center console. It's pretty amazing.
I'm really impressed
with the interior. And I liked the last one. And this just feels
that much nicer. The ergonomics are great.
Everything's really
easy to reach. The center stack has
an 8.4 Inch screen. That's not the biggest
one you can get. There's a 12 inch screen
you can get on other models.
The materials look good. There's lots of nice stitching,
and soft touch materials. Laramie's seats have suede
inserts, they're heated, they're ventilated. It's really nice.
Tons of telescopic adjustment
here from the wheel. I can really put my seating
position back where I like it, and have a really
comfortable driving position. These pillars are
pretty slender. And these handles that you see--
they're kind of pointing at me, so they're not really
obstructing my view at all.
A lot of thoughtful
details here. Even like the shifter
here, the rotary shifter that was introduced when the
eight speed transmission came to this truck a few years
ago has been cleaned up. It feels real nice. All the buttons controlling
the four wheel drive system are grouped right next to it
in a real logical orientation.
The instrument panel
in the Ram 1500 is one of those
things that's been made more attractive than the
last one, and more functional. It's got a screen
here, and there are buttons on the steering wheel. And I can scroll through
myriad screens that show a lot of great information. Trip odometers, of course.
And fuel economy indicators. And tons of meters. Transmission temperature,
oil life, battery, anything. It just looks great.
And the buttons on the steering
wheel have been cleaned up. It doesn't look like parts
been stuffed anymore. It looks like this was
designed for this truck. And so the whole look
is just really solid.
I can't decide whether
I wanted to drive or just ride in the back
seat of the Ram 1500, because this is amazing. They've added four inches
of rear leg room back here. And this seat is adjusted
where I wanted it before. And I pulled it back,
and really stretched out.
And you can see, I'm 6'2",
and I still have tons of room in front of my knees back here. And this seat also does this-- eight degrees of recline. I could sit here all day
all the way across Texas. Yeah, that's great.
And then it's got a really nice
fold down center armrest here if nobody is sitting in the
middle, which is pretty common. That's pretty awesome. There are child seat anchors
in all three seating positions, so you can have three
child seats back here. This is the top
tether attachment.
The other ones are really
easy to get to here. If you want to carry cargo back
here, you can flip this up. The floor is just
absolutely flat. They've gotten rid of the
transmission tunnel that used to be here last year,
and this has been moved back.
So if you actually
fold this one up, there's just a ton of
cargo space back here. You can tie cargo
down really easily. You want to open the Ram bin,
you can put ice and beverages in here. Or you can put a tow hitch.
These have always been
here, but they're bigger than they were last year. There are six trim
levels in all. And two other engines
we didn't drive, the E-Torque V-6, and
E-Torque Hemi V-8. Those we'll drive
at a later date.
We haven't heard anything
about the eco diesel yet, but I'm pretty sure
that's going to come back. For more information,
follow along at Edmonds.Com. And if you want to see
more videos like this, click Subscribe..
on an overcast drizzly day, and we're going to drive
this 2019 Ram 1500. We really liked the last one,
but could the new version be any better? We're going to find out. Sure, the styling is
different, but there's a lot of significant changes
going on with this truck. For one, the
wheelbase, the length between the front
and rear axles, is a full four inches longer.
And they've put all of
that into cab space. The bed sides are an
inch and a half taller, which helps smooth the
airflow around the truck, and also gives you a bigger box. You'd think that would
make a heavier truck, all that extra metal,
but actually, this thing is 255 pounds lighter
compared to last year. And that's because they're using
a lot more high strength steel in the frame, and in the body.
That should add up to
better fuel economy, too. So we're going to hop
in, drive around Texas. We're going to get
on the back roads, we're going to get
on some freeways. We're even going to catch
a trailer on behind, and see what this thing can do.
Let's go. This new Ram has the link
coil rear suspension, which is unique to the
full size pickup world. It really made our
last generation truck ride nice and smooth. And this truck is even better.
It has all of the basic
architecture of before, but they've refined
the shock absorbers, and they've got
progressive rate coil springs in the back
instead of straight rates. And that allows a
smooth ride, but also, more payload, and towing. This can tow 20%
more than before. That's 12,750 pounds now, if
you're keeping score at home.
Yeah, this thing's
a real workhorse. We're not towing
right now, obviously. But the engine and transmission
was never in doubt. This has the 5.7 Liter hemi V8.
Makes the same horsepower
and torque as last year. And it's also backed by an 8
speed automatic transmission that we've seen before. They've really improved
the shift timing. There's a lot more available
choices to the computer, depending on the situation.
So far, we're just
driving on smooth roads, we're not driving up any grades. So I don't expect this to be
a very difficult situation for the truck. But it's nice and smooth. All the shifts are
nice and crisp.
There's no shock at all. It's very pleasant. And listen to that. As someone once said, power.
I really like driving this
truck and it's not just because of the power, and
this comfortable seat. What's really great
is the steering. I can really feel that the
truck knows where it's going. It responds really
easily to commands.
I think the steering
is a little quicker than it was in the
last generation, but not sharp or abrupt. There's just the right
amount of effort. It's not known, it's
not overbearing. But at the same time,
it returns to center, and really knows straight
ahead very well, which is really more important in
steering than you might think.
One of the neat things
about this truck having linked coil
rear suspension is Ram can offer air
suspension-- a four corner air suspension system
allows the truck to be dropped to a
lower height when you're cruising on the freeway
for better fuel economy. Even lower than that
to help ease loading. Or you can raise it up
as much as two inches if you're off road, and
need to clear an obstacle. It's pretty nice.
One thing I'm noticing
here as I spend more time behind the wheel is
the visibility out the front is really good. They've reprofiled the
hood and the headlights. It seems like I can see the
corners a little bit better than the last generation truck. But when I look out
the back, my view is a little bit more
narrow, and slot like, because they've raised
the pickup box an inch and a half, which is great
for cargo carrying capacity, but it does show
up in the rear view mirror just a little bit more.
Everyone has a backup
camera these days, and it's great when you're
trying to hook up a trailer. This one has a twist. There's this zoom button here. When you press it, you
really can see the hitch up close, which is
great when you're trying to do that final
last part of a hookup.
Also, we've got tow
haul button here. And here's where you can
turn off the parking sensor. Because when you got
your trailer hooked up, it's always going
to detect something. So turn it off here to
shut off the system.
Now we've got a trailer
latched on behind. One of the towing features I
really like on this new Ram is the blind spot warning
system that accounts for the length of the trailer. And unlike other such systems,
it does it automatically. In other words, you don't
have to measure your trailer.
You just have to make
a couple of turns and it'll learn how
long your trailer is. In this case, this trailer,
according to the blind spot monitoring system,
is 20 feet long. So it's going to add another
20 feet into its warning to account for the
length of the trailer when I make a lane change. This truck has an integrated
trailer brake controller right here.
And it's hooked up right now. And one of the
many screens that's available on the dashboard
through the buttons on the steering wheel is
a trailer towing screen, which shows how aggressive
the trailer brake gain is set. And that's something you want
to adjust so that your trailer brakes don't lock
up at the same time, so they do what you
want them to do. And so you can see exactly
what that is right here.
You can make adjustments here. And if you need to stabilize
the trailer that's swaying, you can give it a
pinch right there, and you put the
brakes on manually. There are center
consoles, and then there's the center console
in the 2019 Ram 1500. I mean, look at this thing.
It opens up here, this
slides back and forth, this piece goes all
the way through. You can put a laptop in there. There's a 110 volt
outlet in there. There's two USBs,
and two USB-Cs.
There's another USB in here. And on the back, there's
two more USB, and two more USB-Cs for the back passengers. I mean, this is amazing. You can put a phone in here.
There's wireless
charging available that will work when the phone
is in this position, where you can actually see it. And there's a CD slot,
if you still do that. I mean, you could live
at the center console. It's pretty amazing.
I'm really impressed
with the interior. And I liked the last one. And this just feels
that much nicer. The ergonomics are great.
Everything's really
easy to reach. The center stack has
an 8.4 Inch screen. That's not the biggest
one you can get. There's a 12 inch screen
you can get on other models.
The materials look good. There's lots of nice stitching,
and soft touch materials. Laramie's seats have suede
inserts, they're heated, they're ventilated. It's really nice.
Tons of telescopic adjustment
here from the wheel. I can really put my seating
position back where I like it, and have a really
comfortable driving position. These pillars are
pretty slender. And these handles that you see--
they're kind of pointing at me, so they're not really
obstructing my view at all.
A lot of thoughtful
details here. Even like the shifter
here, the rotary shifter that was introduced when the
eight speed transmission came to this truck a few years
ago has been cleaned up. It feels real nice. All the buttons controlling
the four wheel drive system are grouped right next to it
in a real logical orientation.
The instrument panel
in the Ram 1500 is one of those
things that's been made more attractive than the
last one, and more functional. It's got a screen
here, and there are buttons on the steering wheel. And I can scroll through
myriad screens that show a lot of great information. Trip odometers, of course.
And fuel economy indicators. And tons of meters. Transmission temperature,
oil life, battery, anything. It just looks great.
And the buttons on the steering
wheel have been cleaned up. It doesn't look like parts
been stuffed anymore. It looks like this was
designed for this truck. And so the whole look
is just really solid.
I can't decide whether
I wanted to drive or just ride in the back
seat of the Ram 1500, because this is amazing. They've added four inches
of rear leg room back here. And this seat is adjusted
where I wanted it before. And I pulled it back,
and really stretched out.
And you can see, I'm 6'2",
and I still have tons of room in front of my knees back here. And this seat also does this-- eight degrees of recline. I could sit here all day
all the way across Texas. Yeah, that's great.
And then it's got a really nice
fold down center armrest here if nobody is sitting in the
middle, which is pretty common. That's pretty awesome. There are child seat anchors
in all three seating positions, so you can have three
child seats back here. This is the top
tether attachment.
The other ones are really
easy to get to here. If you want to carry cargo back
here, you can flip this up. The floor is just
absolutely flat. They've gotten rid of the
transmission tunnel that used to be here last year,
and this has been moved back.
So if you actually
fold this one up, there's just a ton of
cargo space back here. You can tie cargo
down really easily. You want to open the Ram bin,
you can put ice and beverages in here. Or you can put a tow hitch.
These have always been
here, but they're bigger than they were last year. There are six trim
levels in all. And two other engines
we didn't drive, the E-Torque V-6, and
E-Torque Hemi V-8. Those we'll drive
at a later date.
We haven't heard anything
about the eco diesel yet, but I'm pretty sure
that's going to come back. For more information,
follow along at Edmonds.Com. And if you want to see
more videos like this, click Subscribe..
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