- 6 months ago
RAM killed the V8 and replaced it with a turbocharged six-cylinder. But the V8 is making a comeback. So, should you wait for the V8 to return or give the six-cylinder turbo a shot? Paul Maric does a detailed review on the new Hurricane-powered six-cylinder RAM 1500
Hardness tester, noise and lane keeping results: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/121Auf6HGvaBqRToYcuAz94alin7Sw55SpOPECBDlnKE
Read the full review: https://www.carexpert.com.au/car-reviews/2025-ram-1500-review
Skip Ahead:
Intro: 00:00
Exterior: 01:17
Interior: 04:11
Infotainment: 05:45
Practicality: 08:32
On the Road: 10:56
Acceleration & Braking: 17:06
Off the road: 19:15
Verdict: 24:32
We review every new car on the market, bust car myths, cover the latest car tech and answer your burning questions.
Whether you need new car advice, purchase validation or simply love learning more about new cars and technology, we are your car experts.
Subscribe to Car Expert: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7DvMhvy3H7ntEgn9n3xQcQ?sub_confirmation=1
You'll find us dropping new video content three times a week. If you'd like to ask a question about one of our videos, simply leave us a comment. If you'd like to give us any feedback on our content, feel free to email us, or alternatively, hit us up on social media.
Finally, we want this channel to grow with your support and feedback. If there's anything you don't like or would like to see us change, we'd love to hear from you!
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Paul Maric:
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Hardness tester, noise and lane keeping results: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/121Auf6HGvaBqRToYcuAz94alin7Sw55SpOPECBDlnKE
Read the full review: https://www.carexpert.com.au/car-reviews/2025-ram-1500-review
Skip Ahead:
Intro: 00:00
Exterior: 01:17
Interior: 04:11
Infotainment: 05:45
Practicality: 08:32
On the Road: 10:56
Acceleration & Braking: 17:06
Off the road: 19:15
Verdict: 24:32
We review every new car on the market, bust car myths, cover the latest car tech and answer your burning questions.
Whether you need new car advice, purchase validation or simply love learning more about new cars and technology, we are your car experts.
Subscribe to Car Expert: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7DvMhvy3H7ntEgn9n3xQcQ?sub_confirmation=1
You'll find us dropping new video content three times a week. If you'd like to ask a question about one of our videos, simply leave us a comment. If you'd like to give us any feedback on our content, feel free to email us, or alternatively, hit us up on social media.
Finally, we want this channel to grow with your support and feedback. If there's anything you don't like or would like to see us change, we'd love to hear from you!
Follow us on social media to see what we're up to and to ask any questions!
CarExpert:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CarExpertAus
Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/CarExpertAus
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/carexpert.com.au
Paul Maric:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PaulMaric
Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/PaulMaric
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/PaulMaric
Category
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MotorTranscript
00:00oh my god that is quick go the brake oh that's interesting hasn't got a hill hold that's really
00:09surprising um you don't drive many cars these days that don't have like a an auto hold function
00:15there when you're in an off-road mode so a little bit disappointing g'day i'm paul big american
00:19pickup trucks they put a big smile on my face especially when they have more power this is
00:24new ram 1500 they have ditched the v8 and replaced it instead with a six cylinder and uh that had me
00:33concerned up until we did a drag race recently and this clocked a zero to 100 time of just over
00:39five seconds in a vehicle like this five seconds zero to 100 is literally insane so um we're going
00:47to do a full review of this it's new ram 1500 with the hurricane six-cylinder turbocharged petrol engine
00:52we're going to do a bit of light off-roading as well if you do want to skip ahead to other parts
00:55of this video you can use the time codes that are on the screen or if you're on youtube you can scroll
00:59down and use the chapters below just on pricing the whole range kicks off at over 140 grand now with
01:05this the top spec limited version costing around 160 000 they haven't really gone too wild with
01:11price changes and we are expecting to see some cheaper entry-level models coming at a later date
01:17but just for the moment you've got the laramie sport at the base and then this being the limited as
01:22the top spec now in terms of design look not much has changed with this they've stuck to a pretty
01:27decent formula here and kept it very much the same so you've got piano black finish on the front here
01:32led headlights on the bonnet you've got bonnet fence that aren't really bonnet fence they serve
01:37no purpose at all which is weird but anyway they're there the other exciting news is that ram appears to
01:44be entering v8 production again with the hemi which makes me very happy you've got recovery points
01:49down the front there and then around the side here love the look of these wheels so like a matte black
01:54finish on them you've got all season tires down here on a 22 inch wheel so i'll be curious to see
02:00how this rides because this has air suspension so hopefully they've tuned it in for some some nice
02:05ride you've got indicator lamps here which are required for vehicles at this gvm you've got these
02:10big wing mirrors here as well one of the things people don't realize is when you are towing a bigger
02:15load this can top to 4500 kilos you actually need a decent size wing mirror so a lot of people will
02:21have to upgrade these anyway even if you are towing with like a three and a half ton van you need to
02:25be able to see wide so it is good that these come standard with a wider mirror but you are probably
02:29going to have to look at an extension if you do have something even bigger on the back
02:32ramp badge down the side here you've got side steps that pop out look at that pure luxury it's like a
02:40rolls-royce you've got privacy glass rolls-royce of utes the ram box over here for storing your kfc
02:46there you go you can whack that in there or your indian so you don't stink sink out the cabin
02:51such a clever use of space and they've integrated something similar to this in the new tasman obviously
02:55not as big but i think it's just you know if the space is there why not actually use it so it's good
02:59to see that exists come around to the back with me now around the back you've got led taillights
03:04a four by four badge big ram lettering along here limited as well now let's talk about some
03:12of your dimensions and payloads and stuff so four and a half ton brake towing capacity with a 70 mil
03:16ball you have just under 800 kilos worth of payload available in this tray got power tailgate and i like
03:24that but i don't love this this sort of i i do not understand the purpose of that well i do understand
03:31the purpose which is to cover your tray but i just don't like the look of it i'd love to see just
03:34a roller cover here that that is just easier to use than this contraption here i just think it's
03:38a little bit a little bit convoluted but you do also have the accessory divider in there as well
03:44which helps you sort of segregate things and stop them moving around spraying bed liner here as well
03:48so what a nice little setup okie dokie so let me know what you reckon do you like the fact that this
03:54is now a six cylinder it is phenomenally quick but do you reckon they should have stuck with the v8 let me
03:59know in the comments section below you still in the market for one of these i'm curious to see
04:03whether people are still fascinated with these american pickup trucks or do you think the the
04:08interest has died down let me know your thoughts in the comments section below so we are inside the
04:121500 this is what the key looks like you've got unlock lock button there to drop the tailgate a
04:18button there to lower the vehicle remote start panic and then ram limited on the back there it's a
04:24proximity sensing key so you can leave that in your pocket and push button start is just over here
04:29now have a look at this interior for about 160 000 this is similar price to the tundra this looks
04:36like a rolls royce in comparison like it is such a nice looking interior you've got this open pore
04:41wood grain soft touch materials all over the place like this feels properly luxe if you've got a screen
04:48there for your passenger i do find those things completely useless but something to show your mates
04:53when they hop in your big pickup truck um yeah this this actually feels like it's worth the price and if
04:57you're spending this kind of money you don't really want something that just feels cheap and chintzy so
05:02um yeah this is very nice um yeah builds quality what is it like um if you're watching this that all
05:08feels pretty solid um and you're not from australia uh these actually get delivered to australia as
05:13left-hand drive vehicles and are converted to right-hand drive here in australia and they're so good at
05:20this now that i cannot tell the difference here like it is all absolutely spot on we did notice a couple
05:25of quality issues though with the tundra that we had uh the steering was incredibly hard to move
05:29uh apparently it was over tensioned during the conversion process so i think that uh you know
05:35there's probably still a couple of things i can improve there but for the most part this all looks
05:39and feels um quite nice over here that's what the door slam sounds like
05:42let's talk about uh infotainment uh it's probably one of the things i love about this thing the most
05:50look at the size of that screen it's like over 14 inches in size you've got a 12.3 inch display ahead
05:56of the driver as well like it's a pretty cool looking uh pretty cool looking setup so in terms
06:01of infotainment systems super easy to use and has shortcut buttons on either side which i think are
06:06just a handy addition to have plus knobs as well for volume and scrolling the only issue is that the
06:11knobs are kind of still set up in left-hand drive configuration so volume is all the way over here
06:16it's a bit of a reach uh likewise just getting little bits and pieces on the screen is a bit of
06:20a reach as well um they've got uh touch controls here for things like parking sensors they used to
06:26have a stack of buttons down here but now all you have is the manual uh brake control for the
06:32brake controller so again wrong side if you needed to access that quickly it'd be a little bit of a
06:38reach but um sort of not the end of the world inbuilt uh satellite navigation you've also got
06:43smartphone mirroring wireless in the form of apple carplay and android auto there's apple carplay look
06:47at that huge display there looks fantastic that's what the home screen looks like you've got a stack
06:52of apps there to to actually pick from uh you can have auxiliary cameras there's a lot of different
06:57functions here for uh specifically to do with towing and um you've got inbuilt uh manual and all that
07:04sort of stuff so that's all that's all pretty cool um in addition to all of that you have android
07:08auto i'll show you what that looks like um strangely it's this tiny little display up the top
07:13can't really see a way to make that bigger which is really odd so if there is a way let me know in
07:19the comments section below on the radio front you have harman kardon branded sound system it is an
07:25absolute ripper so very impressed with that am fm and dab digital radio too head of the driver uh the
07:3212.3 inch display has a number of customizations you can make different displays and menus you can go
07:37through so there's a fair bit of functionality there as well and the passenger display uh 10.25
07:42inch uh again kind of a weird and pointless thing but it's there anyway also has an anti-glare sort of
07:48sticker on it so i can't actually see anything on that display um even if there is stuff on there at
07:52the moment and i'll show you what the 360 camera looks like quality of that is actually pretty decent
07:57uh you can actually see quite a bit there which is good uh you've got all the different angles to pick
08:02from you've got a trailer cam i wonder if you've got a bed camera uh let's have a look auxiliary cams
08:09no it doesn't look like it one of the things i love in the uh silverado is just the ability to have
08:18a view at what is in your in your tray just to make sure it's all still there
08:21if you've found a windy stretch of road or something like that but it doesn't appear that
08:25you have this but you do have the ability to add auxiliary cameras which i think is um
08:28a handy feature to have and that's what the horn sounds like moving on to practicality and your
08:34connectivity options so you've got a raft of usb c and a uh even old school stuff like an auxiliary
08:40port and hdmi for that passenger display dual ram chargers a bit of a ram charger you've got 12
08:47volts outlet as well uh you've got a fair bit of connectivity option uh there to pick from so
08:52storage they've done a great job with this so cup holders you've got bullet holders
08:58this whole thing moves to give you access to this bottom section and there's like a little cubby
09:03under there as well this center console is enormous there is just so much space down there um
09:11yeah it is really impressive how well they've packaged all of this so uh very happy with that
09:16uh glove box all the way over here uh reasonably sized there and sunny's holder up the top as well
09:23on the comfort front you have a dual zone automatic climate control you have heated
09:28and cooled seats you have electric seat adjustments you can go forwards backwards your backrest can go
09:34forwards and backwards you can lift the front of the seat the back of the seat you can adjust your
09:39lumbar support seat memory plus massage function as well steering offers manual tilt and reach
09:47adjustment and like i said before on our reach test some of this stuff over here is just a little bit
09:51tricky to reach now have a look at this this is where freedom takes place you've got uh these seats
09:58come up with plenty of storage underneath uh or just the ability to give you a flat load floor
10:05i think is a useful addition uh climb on in here to show you the space look at this there is so much
10:13room here the knee room is fantastic toe room is great headroom is pretty reasonable as well
10:18can also recline these seats too which i think is a useful feature if you want to kick back and relax
10:24a bit center armrest here which has cup holders plus this center tray here for storage all the way
10:32down the front here heated and cooled outboard seats usb cna charging air vents plus cup holders as well
10:39so great place to be said plus a window that opens which is a handy little feature now windows do
10:45that go up and down all the way they are manual down yes they go all the way down
10:51and manual up as well boo hiss that should be auto
10:55okay so we've just hit the road in the 1500 uh so let's start off with the the headline act here which
11:05is the hurricane inline six twin turbo engine under the bonnet so it's a three liter turbocharged six
11:13four hundred and three kilowatts of power and just over seven hundred meters of torque that is
11:22fairly serious stuff and that's all mated to an eight-speed automatic transmission the good part as
11:26well is that you can run it in two-wheel drive for fuel efficiency and also four-wheel drive
11:31uh automatic if you do want i guess the added traction that you get out of um you know having
11:37an extra axle to work with that much power and torque uh what does all that feel like behind the
11:44wheel well let's give it a little stab here we'll see how it goes
11:48oh yeah it is it is unbelievably quick like the way it throws you back in the seat is pretty impressive
11:58uh it it just has so much go and it's a decent gearbox there as well so it all happens nice and
12:06quickly only thing worth noting is just doesn't make a great deal of noise like it uh it's pretty
12:10quiet uh even when you get up it in terms of fuel economy so the the official claim is is over 11
12:16liters per 100 k's we're sitting on 17.2 but a lot of that is to do with the fact that uh this vehicle
12:23was actually used in our drag races so um yeah it is shoot through just a little bit extra there but
12:30given the the output of this engine it will use a lot of fuel especially if you are on it all the
12:35time so just something worth keeping in mind but you do have 125 liter fuel tank so it's not like
12:40you're going to be stopping at the servo constantly for it now let's pick up the pace a little bit we're
12:47going to go over our sine waves here we do this at 130 k's an hour this gives us a good idea of what
12:53uh the body controls like and how it feels out on the country road where you're going to find
12:59these sorts of bumps on occasion all right let's see what this is like
13:07yeah it's got a fair bit of float about it um a lot of that comes down to that air suspension it is
13:14designed for comfort being an american vehicle it is sort of very much uh erring on the side of comfort
13:20as opposed to sportiness which is fine given that this is what it is uh and it's not really too
13:26over the top just if you do tow or add a bit more load to it it's going to feel a little amplified at
13:32times okay bumpy road time do this at 90 kilometers an hour let's see how this feels
13:44got our condensed sine wave here as well
13:47it's actually nicely composed like this stuff is genuinely really bumpy but it is sort of cruising
13:56over this without too many dramas so i'm quite quite impressed with that
13:59now in terms of your drive modes you've got a drive mode selector here on on the wheel
14:08snow tow sport uh what else have we got off-road auto just slot it over to sport mode let's go for a
14:17fang i know this isn't a sports car but i'm gonna have a crack around the run handling track here to
14:22see what it feels like it is so fast like unbelievably quick
14:29it is on another level just in terms of uh how hard it's going here
14:43it is so fast this engine is incredible like it's it is unbelievable how much pace it has
14:55it has no right to be to be this fast and in terms of the handling it's actually not too bad
15:02like it you know for how soft the ride is with that air suspension it's actually handling really
15:06nicely let's see what it's like along the back straight here
15:11now other uh rams we've tested before have been speed limited so curious to see whether this is in the
15:21same boat this is honestly lunacy how hard this is going at the moment all right here's the back
15:29straight let's give this a punch yeah let's see what happens here as we approach that limiter there
15:34it is yep same limiter as the trx so wow this this is genuinely on another level um
15:42yeah i have no other words keen to drive the rho which is like a higher output version of this that
15:50would be that'd be genuinely insane
15:52it is worth keeping in mind as well these big trucks are great for comfort but if it is work
15:59that you need to do ford's about to launch the ranger super duty which has 4500 kilo towing it has
16:064500 kilo gvm it's going to be a proper workhorse with all the safety tech built into it it means you
16:12don't need to have a big vehicle like this so if you do want to check out our video of the reveal of
16:17that click up there to watch that terms of visibility uh pretty standard stuff you can see
16:21quite nicely down the front there those sort of fake bonnet things are there as well uh big wing
16:27mirrors nice and wide as well with good visibility down the sides of the vehicle uh good visibility
16:32out the back as well with this digital rear view mirror and you've got the window that opens and
16:35closes back there too loads of cameras parking sensors all that sort of stuff just to to make
16:40driving this daily a very easy task just in terms of road noise pretty quiet inside the cabin uh you
16:47don't really have super chunky all-terrain tires or anything but uh from inside the cabin even on
16:52corset ship sections of road it's actually not too bad uh we put it up against our calibrated sound
16:57meter and this is how it went if you do want to see how this car compares to others that we've tested
17:01before there's a link in the description below okay time to do a little bit of performance testing so
17:11i'm looking forward to this pop this over to sport mode now this has like a sort of quasi launch control
17:20style thing for this torque converter it dials up like over 3 000 rpm and then just unleashes hell
17:28so we'll see how it goes um all right so we'll do 0 to 100 and we'll go all the way through
17:34uh to 120 for our 80 to 120 as well so here we go all right
17:41oh my god that is quick all right there's 100
17:50and 120 my goodness that is so fast it has genuinely no right to be this quick
18:00holy moly that is insane all right uh so
18:040 to 100 5.04 seconds
18:10that is crazy uh 80 to 120 3.52 seconds that is something else wow all right let's go back
18:23and do a stop from 100
18:24all righty dial up 100 canes now stand on the anchors
18:32okay so how did that go 100 to 0 uh 3.15 seconds 43.23 meters so
18:52okay not amazing uh basically anything between 35 and 40 is good given this is an enormous pickup truck
18:5943 is okay but uh but not not fantastic um all righty let's see how quickly it goes
19:06in reverse here we go
19:07all right 41 kilometers an hour
19:13okay let's do a little bit of line off-roading uh it's gonna eat up this course but you know i thought
19:20we'd do it anyway just for fun so uh key highlights uh you have grand clearance of around 220 mil it can
19:27be lifted though using the off-road mode here because it has air suspension with the lifter so
19:32that gives you a little bit more purchase there in terms of ground clearance
19:36approach angle at 20 odd degrees so that's the angle of the face you can approach before you hit
19:40the front of the car departure angle is the same that is obviously going to improve if you do lift
19:45the suspension though so it gives you a little bit more movement you got high range and low range
19:49and a manual rear differential lock as well so it's all sort of pretty straightforward stuff
19:54uh nothing sort of too crazy i'll be keen to see how it goes here most people aren't going to take
19:58a car like this off-road especially with these tires on them so um probably not built for this
20:03but i thought we'd give it a shot anyway to see how it fares okay so we'll kick off first in two
20:08wheel drive on our offset mogul just to see how it performs when we get wheel lift on the rear axle
20:17this will just give us an indication of what the traction control system's like
20:20all right so it's around there somewhere so just lean onto the throttle
20:25nice a little bit more of a bite there and then it will transfer torque to
20:34the uh loaded wheel there you go pretty much exactly how it's meant to work so
20:40very good awesome all right we will head back now and go in the opposite direction
20:44uh just due to the wheelbase of this vehicle it's it's just going to walk over this
20:48uh it's not really much of an obstacle so we'll give it a shot anyway i'll just pop this over to
20:53four-wheel drive auto and we'll line it up and see how it goes all righty here we go
21:03drop that ending
21:04and pop it just there all right just lean on the throttle
21:10yeah piece of cake yeah it's a wheelbase of this just kind of stretches over our offset mogul and
21:19it makes it uh not an entirely challenging thing so all right let's head over to our hill
21:24okay now what i'm going to do here i'm going to pop this into off-road mode so just using the steering
21:31wheel here go over to off-road beautiful um what we're going to do now as well is uh the hill has
21:38actually it was compacted but it's now being chewed into we've been doing a whole bunch of testing here
21:43recently so um i'll be curious to see how this goes uh as the sort of car lifts itself up i'm going to
21:50pop this into low range as well so just a push of that button um there we go that is in low range
21:58so i'll try going up first uh without the rear diff locked uh constant throttle all the way up
22:02if it gets up there without any drums i'm going to come back around come to a full stop
22:06uh and then just see if it'll take off again with um with the rear diff lock engaged so here we go
22:13we are on very much road tires here but with decent articulation i think it should work fine with
22:22these ruts let's see how we go look at that piece of cake very nice wow it really does make
22:32light work of that stuff um you know these guys have been doing this for such a long time that it
22:38really is a piece of cake to to engineer a vehicle that will just walk up that kind of train that's
22:42that's pretty cool now as far as i can tell here there is no uh heel descent control so what i'll do
22:47is just pop the camera on so i can guide the vehicle over and we'll just chuck it over the edge here
22:53all right very nice breakover angles great as well there with that um air suspension it just
23:01basically gives you more than enough clearance i know with f-150 sometimes we get beached over that
23:05that just crawls over really nicely okay stop and go time pop that rear axle lock on
23:12i'll bring the vehicle to a stop check that if it has a hill holds and then jump back on the throttle
23:19again so something right around there somewhere okay let go of the brake well that's interesting
23:26hasn't got a hill hold that's really surprising um you don't drive many cars these days that don't
23:33have like a an auto hold function there when you're in an off-road mode so a little bit disappointing
23:38all right we'll roll onto the throttle
23:40so it just means you probably have to ride the brake and the throttle just to hold the vehicle on the hill as
23:47you take off uh but yeah that's a little bit surprising i reckon so final obstacle on the
23:52off-road course is the rocks uh let's see what it feels like in off-road mode in terms of comfort
23:58i'm just going to ride the brake with the throttle here just to ease it over just so we don't whack
24:03anything yeah it feels like there's uh more than enough clearance under there to get across this sort
24:08of stuff obviously you wouldn't be doing this on high weight tires if you were doing some
24:13proper off-roading for a longer time this is just just for an occasional off-road stint uh primarily
24:21on-road with these tires but yeah pretty comfortable in here no dramas at all there even in the off-road
24:27mode typically when a vehicle is lifted uh it does tend to throw you around a little bit but this
24:32actually feels pretty good okie dokie so there it is ram 1500 with the hurricane engine what do we
24:40reckon uh so in terms of off-road performance uh very straightforward like these big american pickup
24:45trucks just will go anywhere and they're very easy to drive uh with limited knowledge required to
24:52engage some of these modes so that's all fine would love to see a hill hold function though there for
24:57for those inclines uh in terms of the rest of the vehicle though this engine is a cracker especially
25:02the high output version it goes so hard like you would just not believe it is lacking noise though
25:08like it just sounds like a vacuum cleaner there's no real exhaust sounds i wish they would uh improve
25:12that somehow but honestly for this kind of money the interior that you're getting is so fancy
25:17so schmick and uh you know i just think you cannot go wrong with this if you do need a luxury
25:23big size vehicle to do big towing and to do touring i think this would be the perfect option so
25:27let me know what you reckon in the comments section below do you like this thing would you prefer
25:31one of the other pickup trucks in this segment if you did enjoy this video please make sure you like
25:35it and you share it with your mates uh but until next time take it easy
25:38you
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