[John V]

Originally Posted by rumatt

I rented a uhaul pickup and got a Ram 1500 with 2000 miles on it. I was was really impressed at how pleasant it was to drive. Seating position, steering, braking and ride quality.. I liked it a lot. And it had the big V8 so it felt faster than my e46. It's a lot of truck though. I don't think I can see myself driving that around town every time there's snow in the forecast. But maybe?

I also test drove a Colorado last week. I went while it was raining just to find out how painful the open diff is. Answer: less painful than I expected but still not good. Accelerating around a corner resulted in wheel spin sooner than I had hoped. But the good (ish?) news is thst the traction control is tuned on the aggressive side, in that it allows for wheel spin rather then shutting off the gas causing you to come to a halt. And the e-diff is doing something because every time I was spinning a wheel I was still making forward progress.

But there's something weird about the midsized truck segment. It's small ish and feels more like the size of a car, so I want to hold it to a higher standard on other things as well. But it's a truck: it rides like a truck over bumps, and has a 4wd system that is not optimized for things most people use it for.

The Ram had all the same downsides of the Colorado, but being a giant full size truck it's somehow easier to (irrationally? ) accept them.

This post describes perfectly why the Ridgeline exists.