I got my March '09 issue of Car and Driver today. Inside is a full size truck comparison, F150, Silverado, and the '09 RAM 1500. They picked the RAM as the winner, "Dodge changes the state of the art-and the rules-in the full size pickup game." Made my day

 

It also won the Truckin' Truck of the Year.

 

Yeah, I saw that in an ad for the truck in the same magazine.

 

I saw a comparasion that had it 4th (behind the F-150, Tundra, and Chevy). I thought that was odd. But Motor Trend picked the F-150 and so have a lot of people as the best truck. I would love to have a new Ram though. There such a good looking truck. Most power as well.

 

I've seen different publications going 1,2 or 2,1 on the Ram and F-150 but what's the idiot publication that put the Ram behind the Tundra and Silverado?

 

in case you guys havent seen me mention it elsewhere, i was at the same test comparison between the ford, chevy, toyota, and dodge as these other media sources...it was at the ford proving grounds, and ford provided all of the trucks, including 08 f150s.

the opinion of the group was overwhelming in favor of the ram and f150, and the chevy and tundra were light years behind the ford and dodge. the dodge was an incredible disappointment in the pulling exercise...but was tops everywhere else, along with the f150. i give the overall nod to the dodge, but ford has REALLY done their work. with this new f150, its the first time ive ever thought about looking at a truck other than a ram...but in the end, the ram still has more *****.

if anyone has specific questions about the head to head, post them up and ill tell you whatever i can.

 

The fords need more power for sure.

 

yeah..ford really talked up the capacity of the new f150, and they have REALLY boosted the towing capacity, but the truck struggled off road, and the toyota, chevy, and ram all pulled away from the f150 in top end trim...

 

I can't stand the look of the new Fords, they look way ricer in the rear and super blocky head on, not balanced at all

 

Based on what I've read of your reviews and the criteria given, I'd say what Dodge's sole weakness is the transmission in these match ups. Don't get me wrong the 545RFE is a good transmission, the problem is the gearing. Ford and Toyota who did better on your towing exercises had 6-speeds with closely chosen gear ratios providing a better choice to get closer to a maximum potential for the given engines.

The 545RFE has gearing that you would expect from a 4-speed as the 1st and 2nd ratio are actually farther spread apart than it was with the old 46RE (which had way too tall gearing for 1st). The gearing between 4th and 5th are too close together to yield a significant advantage of any sort, and honestly, it probably would have been wiser to have chosen a compromise 2nd gear ratio and made a true six speed with shorter spaces in gearing than having two gears playing tag team with each other.

My question is why they didn't just use the 68RFE that they use with the Cummins or at least for cost reasons make a lighter duty version just as there were lighter and heavier duty versions of the 727 that yielded the 46RE and 47RE. If they had gone this direction the gear ratios would have been quite closer and would really have better utilized the significant power that the engine has to offer.