2019 Ram 2500 Review

[MUSIC PLAYING] CARLOS LAGO: If you've got $60,000 to spend--DAN EDMUNDS: Or more.CARLOS LAGO: --on your next full-size off-road pickup truck, you're going to end up with one of these two.DAN EDMUNDS: That's right, the Ford Raptor and the Ram Power Wagon represent the apex of what these truck makers bring to the table.CARLOS LAGO: And in this video through a mix of low-speed driving and high-speed driving on varied terrain we're going to show you what these trucks excel at and what they're not so suited for, and we've got the perfect weather to do it.DAN EDMUNDS: Or we will as soon as this storm moves out. We'll have no dust, a little bit of mud, maybe a lot.CARLOS LAGO: Look at us sensitive Californians. Anyway, before we get started, make sure to hit Subscribe and visit Edmunds.com to find your perfect truck.Though these trucks cost about the same, they're built for two very different off-road goals. That means we have to think of this video not like a traditional comparison but rather two reviews in one.Based on the F-150, the current version of the Raptor has been around for a few years. Though it has a smaller engine than the Power Wagon, the Raptor's twin-turbo 3 and 1/2 liter V6 packs more oomph. Not only that, the extra two gears in its 10-speed automatic transmission give that output more chances to work.It rides on 35-inch tires but has slightly less ground clearance than the Power Wagon. Where the Ram gets its approach angle from standing tall, the Raptor's comes from the construction of its front end. It's meant to clear berms and sand dunes.The interior features big controls that are well labeled and logically placed. Knobs are large and easy to reach. One of the best interior design features are the puddle shifters. They work as they would on any sports car because they allow good hand placement on the wheel and also good control of the transmission. It truly reflects the sport-forward design philosophy of this truck.DAN EDMUNDS: The new Power Wagon is, at its heart, a Ram 2500 crew-cab truck with the same V8 and eight-speed automatic you'll find elsewhere in the lineup. What's special here is its off-road suspension still delivers great towing and payload capabilities, and then it's got this factory-installed winch, something no other truck offers. All these features add up to an off-road truck that's ready to work.The Power Wagon's tall ride height and its 33-inch tires give it plenty of clearance and strong approach and departure angles, so there's no worry about dragging a bumper on an incline.Inside, we get a lot of the redesigned interior features that we love in the Ram 1500. It has this beautiful dash, great switches, and an impressively clear center display, but they didn't upgrade everything. First of all, this cab isn't as large as a 1500's crew cab. They also didn't bring over its new steering wheel. This old-school design doesn't telescope, and the buttons aren't nearly as nice. It has these inconveniently placed gear-select buttons that are designed for towing, which is nice. When you're going up a grade, you'll want to limit your gears. But these finicky buttons are a pain. I'd rather have shift paddles.You ready to do this?CARLOS LAGO: Let's rock. Well, now we're heading out to Randsburg. We're taking some of these muddy, dirty roads. The Raptor has a mission statement that's near and dear to my heart, and that is speed. Let's just dig into it a little bit. Let's thread the needle through here. [LAUGHS] What happened there?DAN EDMUNDS: I couldn't find the wipers fast enough.CARLOS LAGO: And what I just love about this truck is that you can go this fast on road this rough and really have a good time. This is what the truck is for, and it's so good at that.The suspension setup is fairly traditional, leaf springs in the rear, though you have internal bypass Fox Shox at all four corners. Rears are remote reservoir, and those are going to really help with the durability that the shocks need with doing constant whoops and constant washboard. That jittering really does a number on them.Now you only have a locking rear diff, not in the front. It's electronically controlled, as are the shocks, as is the four-wheel drive system. And you can control a lot of those settings through drive modes down here. Right now I have it parked in the Baja setting, and it gives me four high. And it gives me a lot of control and traction over this road.Dan, how are you doing back there?DAN EDMUNDS: Loving it. This V8 sounds awesome.[LAUGHTER]CARLOS LAGO: Big one. Big one.Did I hear you right that the collision mitigation is going off?DAN EDMUNDS: Yeah, you threw up a wall of water, and the collision-avoidance system detected it and thought it was a car something.CARLOS LAGO: That's great.DAN EDMUNDS: The Ram Power Wagon is a 3/4-ton truck with a 6 and 1/2 foot bed and a crew cab, which makes it a really good work truck. It's got a solid axle in back with coil springs, which is a Ram exclusive. It's also got a solid axle upfront, and it's got an extra articulation link and a disconnecting stabilizer bar, which allows the front axle to really flex in rough going. It's also got front and rear locking differentials. You can think of it as a 3/4-ton-truck version of a Jeep Wrangler Rubicon.The Power Wagon's beefy suspension is controlled by Bilstein monotube shocks. And on this road, it feels stiff, but it also feels in control. You able to keep up?CARLOS LAGO: No problem. I may be down a few cylinders, but I think I got more power.[ENGINE REVVING][LAUGHTER]DAN EDMUNDS: Here's another one if that wasn't enough. Hang on there. Hang on.CARLOS LAGO: Yee-ha. This is the best. Oh, here come the whoops.[MUSIC PLAYING]DAN EDMUNDS: Oh! Ow.CARLOS LAGO: That was painful.DAN EDMUNDS: Oh man, this is something else.CARLOS LAGO: Big one. Big one.DAN EDMUNDS: Let's get out of here.CARLOS LAGO: Hey, the [INAUDIBLE] are over. Yay!DAN EDMUNDS: Finally. I was getting beat up.CARLOS LAGO: One thing this Raptor does well, it should be able to soak up this washboard. I'm not so sure about Dan back there in the Power Wagon though.DAN EDMUNDS: Oh, washboard roads, my favorite-- not.CARLOS LAGO: There's a car wash just ahead. I got to say, I really feel for these shocks right now.DAN EDMUNDS: Hey, this is what they were born to do.CARLOS LAGO: Oh man, the rear end of that thing is dancing.DAN EDMUNDS: Yeah, this just [INAUDIBLE] machine.CARLOS LAGO: Yeah, so you have to take it up to about 60 before it disappears. That was a deep one.I see a lot of wide-open space in front of us. Do you think that locking read diff in that thing can let you have any fun?DAN EDMUNDS: I'd like to find out. All right, and punch it. This is big understeering. It feels like a donut, but I don't think it looks like a donut. It looks like a croissant or something. Stability control is coming on.CARLOS LAGO: All right. let's engage high-school mode. This is what this truck is made for right here. Let's flick it. Oh, I miss high school. Truck stuff.DAN EDMUNDS: I think that Raptor had the edge today. I wonder how it will do on the trail in the morning.CARLOS LAGO: We're here, right? We're at this turn out here?Well, the rain's gone. The wind persists. The rain also kind of modified our plans. At the outset we wanted to be more technical with our analysis, but the rain just decided we should have fun.DAN EDMUNDS: And we did.CARLOS LAGO: It was a good time through mud, over wash.DAN EDMUNDS: And it never gets old.CARLOS LAGO: At a good clip too, let's say.DAN EDMUNDS: At times.CARLOS LAGO: The rain also washed out the trail we wanted to take, so right now we're looking for a new one that is a bit more technical so where we can show off the articulation and the features that sort of separate these two trucks. Like for example, this one has a disconnectable front sway bar. That one doesn't.DAN EDMUNDS: The Ram has front and rear locking differentials. The Raptor is just a rear locker.CARLOS LAGO: And then there's also the issue of dimensions. This is a larger truck except for width where it's actually quite a bit narrower than the Raptor. The Raptor has a stadium super truck like stance. In a highly unscientific experiment, we lined up the Raptor to the driver's side tire track of the Ram, and you can see a quick visualization of just how much wider the Raptor is.Let's find a trail.DAN EDMUNDS: All right, let's do it.The Power Wagon's four-wheel-drive system is really easy to engage using this lever. Once you're in four wheel drive high, you can lock the rear differential by pressing this button here, and you can lock the front and rear together by pressing the button just above it. You can also disconnect the front stabilizer bar with a touch of a button to improve articulation in rocky terrain or to just improve ride comfort on uneven surfaces and washboard.CARLOS LAGO: For four-wheel drive you have this dial here, and that gets you from two high to four all-wheel drive, which goes back and forth between two and four-wheel drive. This truck only can lock the rear diff, and you do that by just tapping the center button of that dial. There is a trail control system that's kind of like a low-speed off-road cruise control. You turn that on by pressing the button here next to the stability control.Now you do have a trailer backup control. Underneath that, you have a trailer brake controller. It's nice that the Raptor comes with those features or offers them, but it certainly can't tow as much as the Power Wagon, but nor is it trying to do the same thing. That's OK. Why tow your toys to the off-road park when your towing vehicle is the toy?There's just enough space here for this truck to fit through, just enough, but what happens is I don't get a lot of room for error. So if I'm coming around the corner and there's a big rock in the center, I've got to be very decisive about how I tackle it. Like this right here, I've got to try to squeeze between these two, and the tread width on this truck is just so much wider than that Ram.We're coming across rutted roads that don't really have an even thing for us to climb up. You have to drive the truck straight up to it and then hit it with a tire and then just crawl over it, and that can exhibit or at least show how the clearances on these trucks work.Dan, how are you feeling back there over those rocks?DAN EDMUNDS: You know, if I take my time and pick a good line, it's not a problem.CARLOS LAGO: What do you mean take your time? I thought we were supposed to be going fast.DAN EDMUNDS: Well, I'm doing that too, but every once in a while there's a rock. There's a lot of rocks that get exposed when the water runs through, and they can take out your tire in a heartbeat. So you've got to be really careful that you don't clip the edge and rip a gash in your sidewall. Probably going to have to hit a little bit. No harm, no foul, right?That's what's nice about having a truck like this. You've got a lot of capability. We're not exceeding its limits or even reaching them. This truck is really tall, certainly narrower than the Raptor. The widest point though is these mirrors. These mirrors are made for towing, and they stick way, way out. But I can press this button here if I have a tight squeeze and gain myself a foot of clearance at least just by doing that.Visibility is not too bad over the hood because Ram's signature styling has the hood dip down over low-mounted headlights, and that actually increases my sight lines when I'm trying to see the corners and pick my way through the rocks like I am right now.CARLOS LAGO: The Raptor's visibility is pretty strong when you're on this flat surface like this. These shocks are doing a good job of keeping this thing composed over ruts. This truck still bounces around a lot, but I'll say I've never felt like I've had an issue trying to control the truck. I've just got to say too, these seats are really comfortable.Hey, a straightaway. That's what I want to be doing. I want to be hauling through this wash. Let's go faster, Dan. Come on. Let's go.DAN EDMUNDS: Yeah, that is kind of a sporty truck. I mean, that's the difference. This thing's built to work. That one's built to play.A nice little water crossing here. Let's see if we drag our tails as we go through.CARLOS LAGO: I'm worried about that exhaust tip.DAN EDMUNDS: You're good. You're good.CARLOS LAGO: Yeah.DAN EDMUNDS: That wasn't so bad. Something looks interesting up ahead.CARLOS LAGO: This could be the technical stuff we've been looking for.DAN EDMUNDS: I think you're right.CARLOS LAGO: Yeah, this does look pretty good.DAN EDMUNDS: Bringing [INAUDIBLE].CARLOS LAGO: Yeah, I think just straddle the gully a little bit. There's a little bit of a shelf at the bottom, but I think if I go slow, I can make it.DAN EDMUNDS: You're up first.CARLOS LAGO: OK.DAN EDMUNDS: All right, I think we're ready, or I'm ready. I don't know about Carlos. And I got to put it in low range first. Neutral, back to drive. Pretty easy to control speed here, but I sure don't want to drop off this ledge up here and smack something too hard. Slow and steady, low-low. There's this ledge. Ease it over. Good. Didn't hit anything, or nothing hit me.CARLOS LAGO: Piece of cake.DAN EDMUNDS: Absolutely, and now it's your turn.CARLOS LAGO: All right, let's put it in neutral. Engage four low. I'm actually going to use the front-facing camera here too to find my way down the hill. Now's the time where my ideal position, which is super low, is not too ideal. No problems. Piece of cake.I thought this was supposed to be hard?DAN EDMUNDS: Well, that didn't look like a thing.CARLOS LAGO: That wasn't a thing.DAN EDMUNDS: It wasn't a thing?CARLOS LAGO: I used to say in grade school, that was a pizza cake.DAN EDMUNDS: I know how to make it a thing.CARLOS LAGO: Yeah, how's that?DAN EDMUNDS: We go back up. We work against gravity rather than with it.CARLOS LAGO: All right. I go first.DAN EDMUNDS: Yeah, that's what I was saying.CARLOS LAGO: All right, this was a piece of cake coming down. Let's see about the way up. Got it in first gear, still four low. So then I come up to this ledge here. Smooth, consistent throttle, and a little bit of left. Let's put the camera facing forward too. Why not? Come on, you're good. No problem. Bigger rock there than I thought. That's the problem with visibility. Easy.DAN EDMUNDS: All right, now it's my turn.Though their engines and transmissions couldn't be more different, these two trucks wind up with a similar crawl ratio of around 51 to 1. This super-low gearing delivers a ton of torque to each wheel at low speeds, which is great for traction, but it's even better for control.Hey Carlos, looking at the map, if we keep going on this trail, it looks like we'll end up in a mine.CARLOS LAGO: What really surprised me about this truck is we thought it was going to be pretty different than the Ram, and it is in a lot of ways. But it's not like these two aren't so dissimilar. Like the Venn diagram overlaps in more areas than you would think. This can still do a lot, even considering its width. It's still really capable, and it's still a ton of fun.DAN EDMUNDS: When we first came out here, we had one trail all picked out, but the paved road got washed out. The weather had other ideas. So we had to switch it up, but that's OK. A truck like this, it's got the equipment to handle anything you can throw at it, and that's the thing. I just like to come out and explore and know that my vehicle is going to be able to cope.[MUSIC PLAYING]CARLOS LAGO: Well, the weather prevented us from doing the trail that we wanted to do, but we still had a good time.DAN EDMUNDS: Yeah, we found some pretty cool stuff out there.CARLOS LAGO: And we got to test some of the limits of these trucks like the articulation, how wide they are in some areas.DAN EDMUNDS: You found a few rocks.CARLOS LAGO: You know, maybe we'll talk about that. Tell me about the Power Wagon now.DAN EDMUNDS: I thought it was going to be big and ungainly, but it's actually a lot more maneuverable than it looks like it would be, and it's got the credentials underneath.CARLOS LAGO: The Raptor on the other hand, that thing's more like a sports car of pickup trucks, and that's been like that for a long time.DAN EDMUNDS: Yeah, it begs to be driven wide open.The Ram, it feels more like a work truck. The solid front axle that's so great out here just doesn't feel so great on the freeway. And the steering that goes along with it, eh, it's a little bit [INAUDIBLE].CARLOS LAGO: Yeah, and then on the Raptor's downsides, payload's pretty low.DAN EDMUNDS: Yeah. The Ram Power Wagon, it's still a 2500 truck, so it can do a lot of work.CARLOS LAGO: But overall, these are still some super rad trucks.Both of these trucks are equally capable over most terrain. So who's the winner? Well, that depends on the kind of off-roading you want to do. If you want to go fast, really fast, over dunes or through the wash, the Raptor can't be beat. If you're looking for more of a work-oriented rig, one that can confidently tow or crawl through unfamiliar terrain, then you'll find nothing better than the Power Wagon.