Sure, you can rent a car at the airport for your trip, but what do you get if you decide to rent a truck instead, like TFLtruck’s managing editor Andre Smirnov? In this video, Andre takes a look around the surprisingly affordable (and still new) Ram 1500 Classic Tradesman.
Hey guys i’m here in beautiful san diego california and i’m here because of that yes i’m here to do some videos on the brand new 2022 nissan frontier and the 2022 nissan pathfinder but i flew down here and i got a rental car but it’s actually not a rental car it’s a rental truck so in this video i just thought i would have some fun and show you exactly what
You can get when you’re renting actually a pickup truck at the airport so let’s walk around it let’s look at it from the side right it’s it’s a ram it’s a new ram but doesn’t it look kind of not new well take a look at this it’s actually uh it is a brand new ram 1500 classic so what ram is doing right now is they’re building both the previous generation ram the
Ds generation and the next generation of the ram the dt generation like the ram trx at the same time and these older trucks are actually more affordable because they’ve been around for a while and all the kind of factory and tooling is all done but you can still get a brand new one this truck actually has 400 miles approximately on it so it is pretty new so
I wanted to show you kind of what you get and what you don’t get uh when you’re getting a rental pickup truck so let me pop the hood and actually show you what’s going on underneath this beast let’s take a look aha look at this so when you’re renting a pickup truck you are not getting a big hemi v8 i mean you could technically in theory but this is a 3.6 liter
Pentastar v6 gas engine and it is backed up by an eight-speed automatic but you can see look at how much space there is i could put i don’t know there’s like a foot and a half of room here i could maybe put another four-cylinder engine in here and get some extra power going um so but actually this is not bad because you’re actually getting good payload because
This truck is lightweight and fairly good fuel efficiency so this is not bad for a rental truck now let’s look a little bit wider let’s take a look how high this truck is you might recognize that it’s not very tall because it’s a two wheel drive so you’re not getting four by four you can kind of see how much clearance there is just about a hand and a half maybe
Two hands here to the front chin spoiler and that’s probably because i am in california southern california which you don’t really need a four wheel drive vehicle because the rental company doesn’t want you to go off-roading they want you to actually use this maybe for work as a run-about and actually uh we’ll just have fun with it so let’s look at the bed so
Another thing you don’t really get is of course you’re getting a basic tailgate no dampening on the tailgate you’re also not getting a spray and bed liner this is a plastic thing you can see right here and it’s mounted with these bolts here on the tailgate and it’s mounted with the screws into the side of the bed using these little you can kind of see one of
Them here so basically yeah it’s not the greatest uh but it’s a more affordable option and you know people don’t want to spend a lot of money on the rental so this is protection for the bed it’s not the best because you see dirt and grime can get under there maybe water can get under there and eventually it’ll get scratched and maybe a little bit rusty but this
Is brand new so there you have it let’s go inside so case can you jump in the passenger okay all righty sorry it was a little bit windy and noisy out there so another cool thing uh for this rental truck actually boom it’s kind of a work model and technically it’s a six-seater because i have a you know six seat belts three in the front three in the back this is
Kind of a storage cubby there’s nothing underneath this seat in this model and then of course the center console has the big three cup holder area and a big storage area in here with usbs and this truck is so new it still has plastic in different areas here so that’s pretty cool you get well in this case two keys they’re very simple just lock and unlock and panic
So this is very very simple you get a small screen i’ll turn it on in a second you get very basic manual climate control system you just have a traction control off and then of course tow haul mode but actually i forgot to show you this truck does not have a hitch i’ll show you that in a second so they really don’t want you towing um even though there is wiring
For it there is a seven pin connector in the back but no hitch to actually connect anything to so let me start it ah here’s the v6 the beast comes to life so you got a rotary shifter still for your automatic and notice here once again nothing here because there’s no four-wheel drive system to shift you have a copy over here sorry i put my sunglasses here you
Still have another storage area two glove boxes so in the classic you got all that you get a little tiny screen with a rear camera it’s a required thing so yes of course you have that let me put it back in park and actually i like this you get a lot of gauges so right now i don’t know if you can see that so right now it’s showing my transmission temperature i
Can monitor all my vitals my oil temp my oil pressure oil life my battery my you know the rest of my parameters my engine hours my tire pressures even for a basic truck that’s a lot of configurability you can see my miles 432 yeah and pretty simple and i can control obviously my cruise control and my gear selector here and my phone connections i can control
Here for voice recognition and stuff so what else do you need power windows power locks power side and heated mirrors that’s kind of strange why do you need heated mirrors in san diego um i don’t know but anyway so i just wanted to show you really quick what you’re getting and not getting with a rental truck so let me just finish up in the back let’s go outside
Actually see the back seat so we have all of our luggage back here but look at this let me lift this bottom cushion and this is quite interesting because normally you kind of have a split a 40 60 split in a seat like this but this is a little bit more basic the whole seat comes up you have kind of enough storage although there’s a big hump you can see this is an
Older generation of the truck you have a transmission hump or a drivetrain hump here but you still have cubbies and cup holders and even though this is a pretty inexpensive nice little truck um yeah plenty of space here as you can see i promised you to show the back end so let’s look yeah so you can see here spare we even have a sway bar right there underneath
Um but or anti-sway bar should say but no hitch but wiring seven pin connector so i guess technically if this truck ever went you know on auction after being in the rental fleet you could maybe purchase it and add a hitch to it and kind of go and these trucks classic trucks are still still being built the 2021s are there they start at 28 700 bucks it’s almost
Mid-sized truck money for a full-size rig and of course there’s also the warlock which is a little bit more um off-roady truck also on the classic platform they also have an express so yeah there are plenty of choices to be had and affordable choices so let me know what you think have you rented the truck before what have you used the one for when you rent one
I just happen to use this as a runabout and as always go back to tfotruck.com for all the latest news views and real world truck reviews and also go back to tfo truck youtube channel because very soon we will also have the brand new frontier there and the 2022 pathfinder on our either now channel or the car channel stay tuned
Transcribed from video
Why Rent A Car When You Can Get A TRUCK Like This Ram Classic Instead? Here's Why You Should! By TFLnow
