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Really now, is there anything cooler than a big bright red pickup truck with huge chrome wheels? And of all of the pickups built is there any that look better than the 2006 Dodge Ram 4X4 Club Cab? My test truck was bad to the bone. Hemi Power, Four Wheel Drive, the brightest red on the planet and mirror like chrome made this truck one of the most visually striking vehicles ever parked in my driveway. The full size truck market is uniquely American and historically Dodge, Ford and General Motors were the only players. But new competition is salivating over this rich market and Asian automakers want their slice of the pie. Nissan's full size Titian comes in limited configurations but is a formidable competitor. Toyota introduced a larger than full size concept truck during the 2004 auto shows and rumor has it the new Tundra debuting at the 2006 Chicago Auto Show will reflect some of this concept. But, it is still Dodge, Ford and General Motors that control the pickup market. Ford and General Motors hold the lion's share of this market while Dodge must be different. General Motors offers their trucks badged as either GMC or Chevrolet and offer a dizzying array of models. Ford with its dominance in the commercial market has a built in advantage. You will seldom find a Dodge with a commercial utility bed or morphed into an Avalanche styled vehicle but what you will find is one of the best looking trucks on the planet. The grill is the most admired and distinctive front end of any modern truck. Evoking an over the road 18-wheeler look, this is a truck that drips testosterone. Daimler Chrysler design engineers have produced outstanding vehicles but the marketing of the "Hemi engine" matches their design ingenuity. The 345 horsepower 5.7 Liter Hemi engine was everything I expected. Living up to the marketing hype, this is a performance engine. While towing capacity for a 4X4 Ram can reach 8,600 I towed a small U-Haul trailer to St. Louis and back to Kansas City one day. It was like nothing was behind the truck. I didn't even have to use the tow-mode of the six speed automatic transmission and this 2006 Dodge Ram 4X4 Quad Cab climbed every hill on cruise control without effort. Inside, the Dodge Ram is well configured and equipped. While the new "Mega Cab" offers an additional 7.5" of rear legroom, the Quad Cab seemed extremely adequate. I liked the way the rear seats folded down to accommodate storage. My 2006 Dodge Ram Laramie edition included a six disk CD player capable of playing my mp3 disks. When you are planning on spending nine hours alone in a truck a guy has got to have his tunes. That's a lot of seat time and I can speak from personal experience these are comfortable heated leather seats. As you can tell, I am a fan of the 2006 Dodge Ram, however there is one huge negative for this model. Until the 2006 model year Dodge offered a 7 year or 70,000 mile powertrain warranty as standard equipment. This year the extended powertrain warranty was dropped and you have only the standard 3-year/36,000 mile bumper-to-bumper warranty. This is a bad move - a bonehead marketing decision. All new vehicles are better than their predecessors but they are more complicated and repairs are more expensive. It makes no sense to finance a vehicle for 5 years if the warranty runs out in 3 years. Nobody wants to be faced with both a repair bill and a car payment at the same time. The trend is for longer warranties. Cutting warranties is a bad move. My time with the 2006 Dodge Ram Quad Cab 4X4 has come to an end. It was a great test drive. I like in-your-face over-the-top vehicles and this certainly qualifies as one. Visually, the Dodge Ram is the most attractive pickup on the market. You can't go wrong with this truck but you can't ignore the competition either. Whatever you decide, be sure to fire up Grateful Dead's "Trucking" or Willie Nelson's "On the Road Again" CD and blast down the road in pride.
2006 Dodge Ram Quad Cab 4X4 5.7 Hemi Engine
$38,380 MSRP as driven 14/18 MPG Additional Web only Information and Resources For Additional Reviews: |
©2006 - Stan Risener