You should see the smile on my face as I watch this review. The 2022 RAM 1500 TRX is a car nobody needs, but pretty much everybody wants. Join me for a review of this absolute beast of a ute!
Hardness tester results: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/121Auf6HGvaBqRToYcuAz94alin7Sw55SpOPECBDlnKE
More RAM content: https://www.carexpert.com.au/ram
More RAM 1500 content: https://www.carexpert.com.au/ram/1500
Skip Ahead:
Intro: 00:00
Exterior 01:03
Interior 06:12
Infotainment 08:41
Safety Tech 11:24
Practicality 12:41
On Road 16:13
0-100 km/h 18:36
Off Road 23:02
Verdict 29:12
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.
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#ram #trx #review #ram1500trx #1500trx
Hardness tester results: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/121Auf6HGvaBqRToYcuAz94alin7Sw55SpOPECBDlnKE
More RAM content: https://www.carexpert.com.au/ram
More RAM 1500 content: https://www.carexpert.com.au/ram/1500
Skip Ahead:
Intro: 00:00
Exterior 01:03
Interior 06:12
Infotainment 08:41
Safety Tech 11:24
Practicality 12:41
On Road 16:13
0-100 km/h 18:36
Off Road 23:02
Verdict 29:12
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
#ram #trx #review #ram1500trx #1500trx
Category
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MotorTranscript
00:00 G'day, I'm Paul. So there are some cars on the road that make you look tough without needing to go to the gym,
00:04 although for some of us it does come naturally. This is one of those. It's called the Ram 1500 TRX.
00:10 It is the Hellcat-powered
00:12 Ram 1500 and I'm extremely excited to drive it because, I don't know, just look at it.
00:17 Now this competes with things like the Ford F-150 Raptor. These are only built in left-hand drive,
00:23 so they're converted to right-hand drive in Australia and because of that they're pretty expensive.
00:27 Pricing for this kicks off at around the $200,000 mark before you put options on and also before on-road costs.
00:34 Now if that is too expensive, the entire Ram range is converted in Australia as well.
00:38 So there are some more affordable options if you don't necessarily require a fire-breathing,
00:43 supercharged V8 under the bonnet. Today we're going to do a detailed review of this car.
00:48 So if you do want to skip ahead to other parts of the review,
00:50 you can use the time codes up on the screen there or if you're on YouTube, scroll down and use the chapters below.
00:55 And if you haven't done so already, subscribe to our channel and press the bell icon
00:58 so you can find out every single time we drive a car with nostrils.
01:01 Now before we go through the exterior, I just wanted to give a big shout out to these guys, OzMV.
01:08 They are the mod that does the conversion of these from left-hand drive to right-hand drive in Australia.
01:13 They come with a five-year warranty and you can service them at over 200 places in Australia.
01:17 The official importer of the Ram products, Ateco, is also going to be converting these soon.
01:22 But these guys have been doing it for a little over 12 months now,
01:25 so they are well and truly ahead of the game here in terms of supply in Australia.
01:29 You can get this in six external colors. I quite like this white.
01:33 There's also a couple of colors that are specific to the limited edition.
01:36 That was the first batch of cars that came out with a few extra bells and whistles.
01:40 And as I mentioned before, depending on what options you get, that will dictate the price.
01:44 But they all sort of pretty much look like this.
01:47 So that means you're getting this giant grille here with Ram lettering on the front.
01:52 I love with the TRX that you get these decals on the bonnet. You get 6.2 litres supercharged along the edges there.
01:57 But in addition to this air intake, you've got these LED lights.
02:00 So this kind of signifies this looking like T-Rex.
02:04 You can see it coming at night time and you'll definitely hear it as well because it has the most epic
02:08 supercharger whine I've ever heard on a production car.
02:11 You've got real vents over on the side there too. And then down the bottom here,
02:15 you've got recovery hooks, front parking sensors, and then all of this is metal instead of being a plastic setup.
02:21 That means you get a little bit of flex between the body and the bumper there as well.
02:25 So if you are doing some serious off-road driving or have it in the Baja mode where it can go
02:29 fast on rough terrain, it means that you're not going to get any impact on the body there with that spacing in between.
02:34 Over on the side here, you've got a set of LED headlights with LED daytime running lights and then this.
02:40 So if you look closely in there,
02:42 it's actually an air vent that runs down the side of the car and exits out the back there.
02:46 And if we come around to the side here, I'll show you the wheels and tyres.
02:50 We've got a set of 18-inch alloy wheels and these chunky all-terrain tyres. The big difference here between this and the Silverado
02:57 1500 that we tested recently, the Silverado in Trail Boss trim has mud terrains.
03:01 These are far more quiet on the road. It means it is going to be a little bit more civilised.
03:05 Of course, being an off-road vehicle, you've got these wheel arch protectors. Now in terms of the brakes,
03:10 this is a little over two and a half tons.
03:13 So it is a big truck and it means it needs to have big brakes. Up the front here,
03:17 you've got a 378 mm rotor with twin piston caliper. At the back, it's 375 mm disc brake as well.
03:23 So you are getting a proper braking package and it means that if you do need to pull this up in a hurry,
03:28 it's going to get the work done. Over on the side here, you've got the indicator, but this is where that
03:31 exits from the headlamps. So it comes out the side here. Ram lettering along the side there. A big wing mirror.
03:37 Part of the reason this has such monstrous dimensions, and I'll run through those in a second,
03:41 especially the width is these wing mirrors.
03:43 They stick out heaps because you need to be able to see down the side of the car.
03:46 So you not only get the big section of the wing mirror, you also get a smaller mirror built into it as well.
03:51 You've also got an indicator there and a camera for the 360 camera. You've got privacy glass. These awesome looking side steps.
03:58 So this reminds me of the Ford Ranger Raptor in terms of that side step arrangement.
04:02 And you do need these when you're getting in and out because it is a fairly big step up from terra firma.
04:06 And I find that getting up on that gets you into the cab far easier. Now along the side here,
04:11 you've got a ram bar and this actually follows the theme of some of the other crazy named things in here.
04:15 So ram bar, there's a ram charger inside for the phone charger. Now in terms of the dimensions,
04:20 it is just under six meters long, which is huge. A little over 2.2 meters wide,
04:24 thanks to those wing mirrors. But most importantly, the height. It is over 2.05 meters tall,
04:30 which means you're not going to be able to get this into a lot of
04:32 underground car parks in Australia because the top of that will hit as you come in.
04:35 So just keep that in mind. If you do buy one, you will have to park outside if you live in an apartment or
04:40 something else like that. You've got TRX lettering on the side and then around the back you have a set of full LED taillights.
04:46 Now this may look like an air vent, but that's completely closed off.
04:50 So you've got 4x4 lettering, TRX and then RAM here. You will have noticed with some of the lower RAM models,
04:55 this is actually like a chrome finish. So here it's black. Black bumper bar as well. That's steel.
05:00 You've got recovery hooks on the side there.
05:03 Now the interesting thing to note as well is when they are imported into Australia,
05:06 you come with your standard connectors here for the US, but then they are fitted with the Australian connectors as well.
05:11 So if you do need to do some towing, it fully covers you there. We'll drop that tailgate.
05:15 When that comes down, you can see your spray-in bed liner. You've got an LED light off to the side. You've got hooks.
05:21 That's where you can fit a spare tyre as well.
05:24 So there's currently one under the back,
05:25 but you can also fit one to the rear there if you need to.
05:28 You've got adjustable hooks along the side here. And then in terms of the dimensions,
05:31 it comes in at just under 1300 millimeters between the wheel arches.
05:36 1700 millimeters long and a little over 500 millimeters deep. And then importantly with the payload,
05:42 you've got 600 kilos available. Means you can actually use this as a ute if you need to. The tray itself is
05:48 hydraulically assisted, so that means getting it up and down is pretty straightforward.
05:52 Down the bottom here, you have a little over three and a half tons worth of braked towing capacity as well.
05:57 Now, let me know what you think about the design in the comments section below.
06:00 This is obviously a big truck and it might not be for some people,
06:03 especially if you're living in and around the city, but it is actually practical as a truck and you do get all of your off-road equipment
06:09 and a hefty supercharged V8 as well.
06:12 So we're inside the TRX and let's start off with the key. This is what it looks like.
06:16 It's a pretty meaty key which suits the car.
06:18 So you've got unlock, lock, a button here that you press twice to drop the tailgate, remote start and then panic.
06:25 Then on the back you have a RAM TRX. This is a proximity sensing key.
06:29 So you can just leave that in your pocket, grab the door handle and then once you're inside you have a start/stop button there.
06:34 So what about the design?
06:35 So I'll touch on the fact that obviously if you're watching this in the States, you're used to this thing being over there.
06:40 So in theory it is still over there because the steering column still runs down that side when they do the conversion here in Australia.
06:48 They attach a patented part that basically allows the steering to sit here and then get
06:53 translated down the back of the firewall and then down the steering tunnel as it normally would.
06:59 And to me this actually looks like a really decent conversion. I can't tell what's actually not standard here.
07:05 You do sort of notice a couple of things like over here the switch panel for the lights is a little bit loose,
07:10 but for the most part everything looks like it should be exactly where it is.
07:14 So,
07:15 really sort of impressed with the conversion job here and it really feels like they've gone to a lot of effort with it.
07:19 In terms of the presentation of the TRX in general though, so the DT got a pretty significant upgrade inside the cabins.
07:25 You've got this giant infotainment system down the center.
07:28 You've got this sort of leather stitch dashboard. You've got Alcantara along the top there,
07:32 along the top of the steering wheel. Really is quite nicely decked out. This is probably my favorite feature though.
07:38 You've got a plaque here that has TRX, shows you the engine, it shows you the size of the supercharger.
07:44 Designed by FCA, Auburn Hills, Michigan. Horsepower 702 horsepower.
07:49 You've got the VIN number and then you have the amount of boost that that supercharger provides. So, love this.
07:54 It's so American and I just love that that exists. The rest of the interior is quite practical.
07:59 So we'll go through all of the storage and that sort of stuff later. What about your touch points though?
08:03 So that is, it's a bit firm,
08:05 but it's good to sort of rest your arm on and you do kind of have that
08:07 rested position while you're driving. Same over on the door. It's sort of nice to sort of rest your arm on.
08:12 How soft is it? Well, we've got our durometer.
08:15 We've tested the main surfaces in this cabin.
08:17 If you want to see how this car compares to others that we've tested before, have a look at the link in the description.
08:22 Now, what about build quality? So,
08:25 it actually all feels really solid. I've had a proper play with all this stuff and it feels really nice and solid,
08:30 especially given that this is a conversion done in Australia. And finally, our door test.
08:35 Sounds nice and meaty.
08:39 Let's talk infotainment. So, I'm talking to you back there because when that door's open, it just continuously beeps.
08:44 So, I've had to shut that. 12-inch vertical infotainment system.
08:49 It kind of gives me Tesla Model S vibes in terms of the way that it looks.
08:53 This was new with the DT and I think it really suits this. You'll notice with the 2022 version of the Chevrolet Silverado,
08:59 for example, they've gone for a widescreen setup and I'll explain why that's probably a better option soon.
09:03 But for the main part, you have AM, FM and DAB plus digital radio.
09:08 But keep in mind, DAB doesn't work here in Australia and it doesn't work in a lot of the
09:11 Chinese and American imported cars for some reason. On top of that, you have a standard nine-speaker sound system.
09:17 But this car has the optional Harman Kardon 19-speaker branded sound system.
09:21 It is a ripper of a sound system.
09:23 You've got a stack of different menus down the bottom here that you can access different controls.
09:27 So, you've got radio, you've got controls for the heated seats and also the cameras. Keep in mind though, for some reason,
09:34 they didn't switch this over. So, when you turn the driver's vented seat on, it actually turns on the passenger side in Australia.
09:40 So, I think they probably need to get that sorted out. In terms of your apps,
09:45 you have smartphone connectivity that I'll run you through in a second. But have a look at this TRX menu.
09:50 This is for your sports driving. So, this is your drive modes.
09:53 We'll talk about those when we go for a drive. But if you hit the performance button, it will actually load the performance pages.
09:59 So, in here you've got all sorts of fun things to keep you entertained. It gives you your 400 metre
10:05 timers for your quarter mile. You've got G
10:07 force metres, all sorts of gauges. You even have an ability to set up
10:12 cool down for the car as well if you're going for a bit of a drive. So,
10:16 really cool setup here. And I think that this is what owning a TRX is all about.
10:21 In terms of smartphone mirroring, your satellite navigation, it has inbuilt sat nav, but it doesn't work in Australia.
10:26 So, you have to do that through your smartphone. You have both Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. Both are wired.
10:31 I'll show you what Apple CarPlay looks like first.
10:33 Now, the reason I said the widescreen layout in the new Silverado is going to be better is because look how small CarPlay is
10:39 on this screen here. It's just really tiny and it looks kind of out of place.
10:43 And it is hard when you're using some of the apps. They don't give you the full
10:46 visibility of the app because it has to hide some menus because of the small screen.
10:50 So, a little bit disappointing, but I guess that is what you have to work with when it comes to a vertical screen.
10:55 And this is what Android Auto looks like. So, same story. You have that sort of segmented integration there.
11:01 But it is nice and fast though, which is a big bonus.
11:04 There is one more screen ahead of the driver. I'll run you through that quickly.
11:06 You've got just a whole heap of different features on there. Everything from the trip computer to another performance menu to an
11:13 off-road menu really is sort of fully featured with all of the gadgets and the tech that you need.
11:18 So, really nice setup there. Then, analog gauges on either side. Now, let's talk about safety tech. Some of it is
11:24 optional, which is a little bit confusing, but you can option this with autonomous emergency braking with pedestrian detection.
11:30 You also get blind spot monitoring built into that wing mirror.
11:34 You have a lane departure warning and a lane keeping assistant, adaptive cruise control.
11:39 And then in terms of parking, you have both front and rear parking sensors and a 360 camera.
11:43 I'll show you what the camera looks like. I'm going to switch the car on first.
11:46 Okay, so,
11:49 surround camera, there it is. So, the quality is actually pretty good. If I put that into reverse,
11:53 you can see that you actually get that top-down view. You can see out the back there.
11:57 You can then switch the views as required.
11:59 So, you're getting really decent visibility out of the car. So, really impressive setup.
12:06 That's going to be great for off-road driving and also trying to park this thing because it is
12:09 enormous. You also have, when it comes to parking, trailer steering. It's probably, I'll switch the car off,
12:16 probably one of my favorite features with the big Yank trucks because reversing a trailer can be hard work for some people.
12:22 This makes it easy though. So, using the trailer steering, it can manipulate the steering on its own
12:27 so that the trailer will go in the direction that you want it to go in.
12:30 It will then do the countermeasures with the steering that need to happen for the trailer to go where it needs to go.
12:35 So, love that setup and it's good to see that it's standard here on the TRX. Let's talk about practicality.
12:40 We'll start with your connectivity options. So, down here, you've got a USB-C, a USB-A, an auxiliary, another USB-C,
12:46 another USB-A port. You've got a 12-volt slot up the top here. Within the center console,
12:52 you've got another USB-A port and if you go one step deeper, you then have an additional power outlet as well.
12:58 So, there really is a stack of connectivity options here, but I love this.
13:02 I mentioned earlier that you have some funnily named stuff. You've got the RAM charger, which is your wireless phone charger.
13:08 So, yeah, really cool stuff. Now, in terms of your phone, where can it live?
13:13 Well, you've got stacks of options. You can slot it down there, you can put it in the RAM charger,
13:17 you can put it in the cup holder. It really can live anywhere. And in terms of your bottle, same story,
13:21 that lives in there without any problems. Rubber teeth on the side,
13:24 so that grips it nicely and it won't be going anywhere. This can also live with inside the door.
13:28 There's two slots there in terms of the bottle size that you want. So, being an American truck,
13:33 it's going to fit all sorts of different bottles, which is good news. Other storage,
13:36 you've got this center console with enough room up the top there. Then has a second layer that's nice and deep
13:42 with another little Easter egg there. You can see a Tyrannosaurus Rex. You've got a box over here,
13:48 but because this is a right-hand drive conversion, you've got to lean all the way over to open that
13:52 glove box down the bottom there. You've also got a sunglasses holder up the top here. And finally, storage
13:58 on either side of the center tunnel as well. In terms of your comfort, you've got dual zone automatic climate control.
14:05 You can control that on the sides here or you can go to the climate menu
14:08 and then control it all through here. This is also where you'll find the controls for your seats. So I mentioned earlier that
14:15 controlling your cooled seats requires you to go to the passenger menu, not the driver menu,
14:20 but you do get a heated steering wheel and heated and cooled driver and front passenger seat. In terms of the seats themselves,
14:26 they're built for Americans. So you've got plenty of room on the side. They're electrically adjustable.
14:31 So you can go forwards, backwards, backrest goes forwards, backwards.
14:34 You can lift the seat front and the back and then you also have
14:38 bolster adjustment as well. Both the driver and front passenger seats are electrically adjustable.
14:43 Steering is manually adjustable and you have both tilt and reach adjustment on the wheel. And then in terms of our reach test,
14:50 it's actually not too bad to reach all of this stuff while you're driving from this driving position.
14:55 Okay, back seat. If you're sick of complaints in the back of Australian dual cab utes,
15:01 here is the solution for you. Now, I'll run you through the space in here in just a second,
15:05 but in terms of your versatility, you can lift both sides up and you get under floor storage.
15:11 And you've also got that over on the other side as well. I'm going to hop in. So using our sidestep and our grab handle,
15:18 look at this. There is just acres of knee room there.
15:23 I have heaps of toe room. Headroom is excellent too. It really is very spacious back here.
15:29 You could have three adults side by side without any dramas at all. In terms of your other creature comforts,
15:34 you've got air vents, heated and cooled seats for the two outboard seats, USB-C, USB-A charging.
15:40 You've also got another power outlet there rated at 400 watts. Matte pockets,
15:44 bullet holders, pen holders, I don't know what they are.
15:48 You've got a centre armrest here that drops down like this.
15:51 So you've got a little bit of storage there, two cup holders so you can slide your bottle into there.
15:55 You've got grip teeth. You've got another two cup holders just here and then also storage inside the doors.
16:02 You've got this cool window so this can be opened from the front there.
16:05 It just gives you a little bit of airflow and then this big panoramic glass roof as well. So awesome place back here.
16:10 So we have hit the road in the TRX. I'll run you through the engine specs first.
16:18 So this has the Hellcat engine and for those of you who are unfamiliar with that, that is a 6.2-litre
16:23 supercharged petrol V8 engine. It makes 523 kilowatts of power and almost 900 newton metres of torque.
16:32 And it's all mated to an eight-speed torque-flied automatic transmission and also goes through a permanent four-wheel drive system.
16:39 So it's not like some of the other pickup trucks in this segment that are rear-wheel drive and then can be all-wheel drive.
16:44 This is just always all-wheel drive and depending on the drive mode that you're in, it can go anywhere from
16:49 predominantly 50/50 all the way to sending most torque to the rear.
16:53 It really is quite a clever setup and comes with all the four-wheel drive controls you need as well,
16:57 which I'll run through a little bit later on.
16:59 Okay, so what's it all like behind the wheel?
17:03 I've got to tell you this thing puts a massive smile on my face.
17:06 So it's got a 2.4-litre twin scroll supercharger and the best thing about that is it makes an incredible noise.
17:14 It has so much whine. Have a listen to this.
17:16 The noise is just seriously crazy. It's making noise out of the front and the back.
17:28 It's just coming out of every single part of this car and it is just some proper old-school muscle car sound.
17:35 I have genuinely not heard a supercharger whine as loud as this in a production car. This
17:41 never ever gets old.
17:44 It's worth noting as well with this gearbox, it is a really good setup. Because of the supercharger,
17:50 you can lean on the throttle and it doesn't have to dive back through gears.
17:54 It'll simply spool up that supercharger and then give you the push in the back that you need.
17:58 But then when you do flatten the throttle, it just gives you everything.
18:01 And then of course you can use the paddle shifters here on the steering wheel as well,
18:05 if you do want to do some of your own shifting.
18:07 Now, fuel economy. So if this concerns you, I would look away from your screen or skip ahead.
18:14 The official figure is just under 20 litres per 100 km, but we are achieving
18:18 31.3 and that is pretty much with mainly highway driving.
18:23 The lower the speed is that you're doing and the sort of light off road that we'll be doing,
18:28 it sort of cranks that fuel economy up a fair bit.
18:31 So please don't expect this to be a Prius when it comes to fuel use. So 0-100.
18:36 Ram claims it's around four and a half seconds, zero to 60 miles an hour.
18:40 Put it up against our stopwatch and use launch control.
18:43 This is how it went.
18:46 So you've got a stack of drive modes to choose from. Using this button here, which is aptly named TRX,
18:58 you hit that, it brings up your drive mode selection. You've got Sport, TOW, SNOW, AUTO,
19:04 CUSTOM, MUD, SAND, ROCK and Baja.
19:08 So basically depending on which one of these you choose, it will adjust the way the transmission goes,
19:12 what the paddle shifters are doing, the stability control, the steering feel, etc, etc.
19:16 It can even do the ride and that's because it has adaptive dampers.
19:20 So it's a Bilstein shock absorber system with adaptive damping and a remote reservoir.
19:24 And it means you can get the best of both worlds.
19:26 You can actually just cruise over things and it soaks up the bumps beautifully or
19:30 you can go into the Sport mode and it just firms everything up to give you a slightly hunkered down feel.
19:37 So we'll have a play with that in a second. But in terms of the ride in general,
19:40 they really have managed to smooth this out beautifully.
19:43 It's a bit like the Ranger Raptor, which is just like silk. It just cruises over everything.
19:48 It's not the best handling car in the world, but it means that when you do hit speed hubs, cobblestones,
19:54 corrugations, any of that stuff, this is just smooth as silk.
19:58 And I think it is a credit to them making something this big feel as comfortable as this does.
20:04 Okay, let's give Sport mode a crack. We've got our corner here. It's in Sport mode, suspension's firmed up.
20:10 Yes!
20:19 Oh, that noise is so good. Okay, so the Sport mode actually sits surprisingly flat.
20:26 It doesn't sort of, it's not dead flat, but for a vehicle this size,
20:30 it is pretty engaging. And three to five wide tyres means it has a fair bit of traction there, especially when it's dry.
20:36 It's not so good in the wet though.
20:38 Now, it's time to call out the bit of this car that is very different from you guys who might be watching this in the States.
20:44 And that's the steering wheel. Now, most of the time it's okay, but you'll notice here as we go over some of these
20:49 sort of corrugated sections, it does have a bit of rack rattle and that's due to that mechanism
20:54 they've installed behind it. Steering feel also isn't very good.
20:58 So I haven't driven one of these in left-hand drive,
21:00 so I don't know whether it is just the TRX that doesn't have great steering feel,
21:03 but I do notice when I am turning
21:05 there is varying levels of resistance as I go through that steering range, and that is inherently due to the fact that you need to route
21:11 the steering input from here through to the other side of the car. So look, it's good. It's fine. It's okay.
21:18 It's not the end of the world, but I think there could be a little bit more work done on this transfer box,
21:22 certainly with some of the
21:25 locally converted stuff from Ateco, for example,
21:27 the steering feel is far better on those cars because you don't actually feel that there is anything different to a bog standard car.
21:34 I mentioned earlier on that one of the benefits of all-terrain tyres over mud terrain tyres is you don't get a great deal of road
21:40 noise, and I've done a bit of highway driving in this and you barely notice it's on all terrains.
21:44 There isn't a great deal of intrusion in the cabin. When we drove the Silverado 1500 Trail Boss,
21:49 that was on mud terrains and it was really projecting a lot of noise into the cabin, whereas this is nice and civilized and
21:55 really doesn't feel all that bad for long distance trips. Turning circle,
21:58 I got some bad news if you're driving this car in and around the city.
22:01 It's about 15 metres and that means when you go to do u-turns,
22:06 it is going to be well and truly a
22:09 three-point or even a four-point affair
22:12 most of the time, but at low speeds the steering is light enough. Even with this transfer box,
22:17 it's light enough to do parking and all that sort of stuff. So what about visibility? You may think to yourself
22:23 this is a giant car. It's probably hard to see out of and you'd be right. You do sit really high,
22:28 so in terms of the projection you get down the road, that's great,
22:30 but it really is quite difficult to see the front corners of the car and the back.
22:34 I mean the back feels like it's another two postcodes away. You do get front and rear parking sensors though,
22:40 so that makes life easy. You also have a 360 camera, that also makes life easy too, and these giant wing mirrors,
22:45 although the left-hand side wing mirror is kind of redundant because it's almost impossible to see out of.
22:52 But visibility at the back is good. This digital rear view mirror does a good enough job,
22:56 but you can just switch that off to get decent visibility out the rear too.
23:00 Okay, so let's do a little bit of light off-roading now.
23:05 I say light off-roading because you could probably do some pretty hardcore stuff with this, but today we're going to keep it
23:10 very straightforward and we'll just test out
23:13 some of the four-wheel drive systems just to see how it works. In terms of the four-wheel drive specs,
23:17 you've got 300 millimeters of ground clearance, which is absolutely epic.
23:21 You've got an approach angle of 30.2 degrees,
23:23 that's the angle of the face you can approach before you hit anything at the front, and a departure angle of
23:27 23.5 degrees, which is the same but in reverse. At the back, you've got a Dana 60 rear end with a locking differential,
23:34 so one push of this allows me to lock that rear diff lock, but it is constant four-wheel drive.
23:39 You've also got four-wheel drive high range that you can lock it into or four-wheel drive low range,
23:44 so you have all of the off-road equipment that you need,
23:46 but probably the best part about this is the Baja mode for the suspension. That will give us absolute wheel
23:52 articulation and I'm keen to see how that goes when we get to our offset mogul.
23:56 So we'll run through that shortly, but let's start off with our logs.
23:59 I'm just going to put this into Baja mode because why not? So you can see everything changing here.
24:04 It shows the transmission is in Baja mode,
24:06 paddle shifters are on, stability control is in Baja mode to give us a bit more slip and suspension is in Baja mode as well.
24:12 So let's give this a critical start heading up here.
24:16 I can already feel in that Baja mode the suspension has softened up really nicely and despite the fact we've got a supercharged V8,
24:22 it's climbing up here really
24:24 sort of steadily. It's not surging, which is what I was hoping it wouldn't do given how much torque this thing has.
24:31 We've also got a hill descent control. We'll try that on the way down too.
24:34 It is walking up here without any dramas at all. Pop that hill descent control on.
24:39 So it says to enter select speed shift to four low. So I'll pop it into four low.
24:45 There we go. That is engaged. We'll put the hill descent control on.
24:50 Come around here and give this a shot. The turning circle is just crazy on this.
24:55 Okay, here we go.
24:59 So we've got some pretty deep ruts here, but
25:01 yeah, with the wheel articulation that we have it's getting down here without any problems at all and the hill descent control is
25:07 keeping everything nice and steady too.
25:10 I've got full confidence in how that's working.
25:15 Yeah, big tick. Now, let's try and go back up that hill as well because I think going down is pretty straightforward and with these
25:22 tyres it's just going to go wherever it wants, but we'll keep it in low range.
25:24 We'll go up the hill as well and just see what it's like once you get a little bit of
25:27 ruttage that it falls into and see whether it struggles to get up there. Okay, let's try a hill again.
25:33 This time we are in low range. I still don't have the diff locked, so we'll just climb up here and see how it goes.
25:39 It's quite hard to see. So it has got a camera view here
25:43 so we can actually set it to front view so I can see where the ruts are
25:47 and how we're trekking up this hill. It's getting up here with no dramas at all.
25:51 Like I said, this is very much light off-road terrain, but it is walking up here without
25:56 any dramas in the world. It's just impossible to see out of this. It's crazy how big this is.
26:03 All right, we'll go down the other end here now.
26:06 Turn this corner.
26:09 Yeah, it is really nice and comfortable too. Even here on our logs where it can get pretty rough,
26:13 it's just going down without any dramas at all. Let's head to our offset mogul.
26:17 This is where we're going to be able to test the rear end and how it goes with traction.
26:20 I'm going to leave everything in high range and the rear diff unlocked just to see
26:24 how much wheel articulation we get and how easy it is to get out of that little section.
26:28 Okay, so let's go through our offset mogul. We've got our seesaw first, which is
26:34 where the car gets thrown onto its side and each time I go through this,
26:39 I feel like the car's going to tip over. The other cool thing is just here, we've actually got
26:43 pitch and roll, so you can see the kind of angle that we're on at the moment, and there's a couple of other menus there.
26:48 So you've got wheel articulation and also a menu that tells you what the differential is doing.
26:53 So we'll get it into our crisscross here. This is where we're going to be able to see the body rigidity.
26:57 So we're fully loaded up there. I'll try and open and close the door, see how that goes.
27:02 No dramas at all. So nice and strong chassis. Let's move over now to our offset mogul.
27:08 This is where we're going to get the wheel lifted pretty much entirely off the ground.
27:12 Every time we've been here in a dual cab, for example, the wheel will leave the ground.
27:15 So I'll be keen to see what this looks like.
27:17 We'll then hop out as well, so I can actually just give you an idea of what that suspension is like
27:22 when it is fully open. So here we go. We're approaching it now,
27:25 getting to the point where we're fully articulated, which is right about there.
27:31 So let's hop out and have a quick look at what's going on at the back end.
27:33 Okay, so let's have a look at this. So you've got a live axle at the rear,
27:36 which means it's not independent suspension. This is at full load.
27:40 You can see that wheel is completely compressed into the body there.
27:44 But the reason you're able to get so much articulation is what's happening on the other side.
27:48 So come and have a look at this. Now with that live axle, while that side's fully compressed,
27:53 have a look at the articulation you have here. This is still in contact with the ground.
27:57 I mentioned earlier that when we've tested dual cab utes here before, the tyres have been off the ground.
28:01 Only something like a Land Rover Defender with air suspension can get this type of articulation.
28:06 Under here, you can see the guts of that suspension system.
28:08 You've got a coil spring with a bump stop. Over to the side, you have that Bilstein Active Damper
28:14 with remote reservoir as well. So that means you can adjust how
28:18 firm the suspension is. When you are in Baja mode, it's able to soften up completely and give you the compliance
28:23 you need when you take those strong hits. It'll take up to a tonne of impact per corner.
28:28 So it is a properly decent setup and it is going to be good for off-road.
28:32 And as you can see here,
28:33 this is probably not going to struggle at all to get us out of here because of the tyres and the articulation.
28:37 Then you can also lock the rear diff if you need to.
28:40 So let's hop inside and see how it goes when we try and pull out of here.
28:42 Righto, so you can see how much articulation we've got there.
28:45 That means that even without the rear diff locked, I should just be able to put this into drive,
28:49 roll out of the brake,
28:52 and it walks out of here without
28:55 any dramas at all. So it's a pretty awesome setup. I didn't think this would challenge it,
28:59 but I think it goes to show you just how far you could go off-road in one of these.
29:03 I think that, you know, if you found some proper off-road terrain, this would absolutely destroy it.
29:09 So I absolutely love this about as much as I thought I would. I don't need this in my life,
29:16 but I want this in my life desperately.
29:18 It's a car that's not going to exist in like five or ten years time as the world moves towards
29:22 electric vehicles and stuff like that. And I completely support that movement and whatever, but
29:26 yeah, this is just something else. And Ford is bringing a V8 version of the F-150 Raptor,
29:31 so it is going to be an interesting couple of years in this segment. Now, things I like. It is
29:36 just an epic engine. I love the way it rides. It has a lot of presence, but things I don't like.
29:41 The steering feel just isn't there for me.
29:43 I know that this is how you have to do a conversion to make it work in right-hand drive when there isn't a factory
29:48 right-hand drive version available, but to be honest,
29:51 it just doesn't really have the feel you would want to be driving quick in it.
29:54 And I haven't driven the left-hand drive version of the TRX,
29:57 so I don't know if it's just how it is from the factory or whether it's the local conversion job.
30:01 I will get a chance to drive the other version of this that is being converted in Australia at the moment in a few months
30:06 time, so I will report back on that. But outside of that, there is just really not much to not like about it.
30:11 So let me know in the comments section below. Have you bought one of these? If so,
30:15 we are instantly friends. Let me know what you like about it. If you haven't bought one,
30:19 what do you think about it? Do you think it's cool or do you think it is just absolutely ridiculous and pointless?
30:24 Let me know in the comments section. If you did enjoy this video,
30:26 please make sure you share it with your mates, and if you haven't done so already,
30:29 subscribe to our channel and press the bell icon as well. But until next time, take it easy.