Cars Journal: diciembre 2009

jueves, 10 de diciembre de 2009

2010 Motor Trend Truck of the Year: Ram Heavy Duty

Ram's platform is similar to last year's, yet has undergone significant upgrades and enhancements that improve ride, handling, and noise levels. It uses a hydroformed, fully boxed frame, with coil springs in front and a live-axle, leaf-spring rear. There's no shortage of variety throughout the truck line, with a regular cab, Mega Cab, and a real crew cab, replacing the smallish Quad Cab option in the previous Ram. Buyers can choose from single or dual rear wheel setups, rear drive or two four-wheel-drive systems, short or long bed, three different axle ratios, and four trim levels. There's also the awesome Power Wagon, a Hemi-powered 2500 crew cab with 4.56:1 gears, electronic locking diffs, electronically disconnecting front anti-roll bar, skidplates, heavy-duty battery and alternator, and winch.

Much of what is so impressive about the heavy-duty Ram is not only how easily it does all the tasks it's built for, but also how easy it is on the driver. During Truck of the Year testing, we took all the contenders through a driving loop, empty and with a full payload (bags of rock salt); our test crew also measured acceleration and braking data with each truck outfitted both ways. Testers noted that performance was excellent with or without a heavy load and, as expected, ride improves with a load in the bed. There were rave reviews for the Cummins engine, which not only provides gobs of power, but is surprisingly quiet doing it. Driving loops with the salt or without, the truck handled basically the same. That's how the Rams were throughout the week -- they did everything asked of them without effort, and drove like much smaller trucks than they are.

Read more: http://www.motortrend.com/oftheyear/truck/112_1002_2010_motor_trend_truck_of_the_year_winner_ram_heavy_duty/handling.html#ixzz0ZKuQhSEe