Ram 1500
Published · Researched 2026-09-21
Ram 1500 Review — Honest Take, September 2026
The Ram 1500 spent 2025 as a case study in how to fumble the most loyal truck audience in America, and 2026 as the apology tour. Here's the short version: Stellantis killed the Hemi V8 for 2025, replaced it with a twin-turbo inline-six called the Hurricane, watched the Hurricane generate a federal class-action lawsuit and the worst Consumer Reports score ever given to a pickup, and then brought the Hemi back for 2026 while pretending the whole thing was the plan. It was not the plan.
Let's be fair about the truck underneath the drama. The DT-generation Ram 1500 — coil-spring rear suspension, genuinely refined cabin, max towing in the 11,000-plus-pound range depending on configuration — is widely considered the best-riding half-ton you can buy. Owners in the 38,000-member RAM 1500 OWNERS Facebook group love the interiors, the towing manners, the feature-per-dollar on the mid trims. A 2019 Limited with 123,000 miles still gets a serious buyer asking the group for a pre-purchase gut check at $26,000 out the door. The bones are good. The electrons are the problem.
The Hurricane era is the part you need to understand cold. The 3.0-liter twin-turbo six makes 420 horsepower in Standard Output and 540 in High Output form, and on paper it's a monster. In driveways, per the Norberg v. FCA class action filed August 25, 2026: stalling, limp mode, repeated check-engine lights, misfires, hesitation, sudden power loss at highway speed, parasitic battery drain, overheating. One plaintiff's 2025 Rebel threw its dashboard warnings at 1,200 miles; the dealer kept it over a month, never found the cause, and replaced the brake booster. The complaint cites 100-plus NHTSA reports of engines shutting off in traffic and alleges dealers are "unable or unwilling to adequately repair" the trucks. Consumer Reports gave the 2026 Ram 1500 a 5 out of 100 — "the worst pickup truck Consumer Reports has ever evaluated" — listing keyless-entry battery drain that strands trucks overnight, Hurricane catalytic converters melting, coolant leaking into the intake, a fire-prone trailer brake module, and blanking dashboard screens.
The pre-Hurricane trucks have their own aging ledger, and the owner group names it unprompted. The eTorque mild-hybrid motor-generator units develop bearing problems at low mileage — a September 2026 post from a rebuild shop shows "another low mileage eTorque MGU in for a rebuild from the dealer," which is a funny sentence until it's your truck. The 5.7 Hemi's exhaust-manifold bolts break and manifolds warp (a 2021 owner posted exactly that diagnosis in September 2026), and the lifter tick is a known soundtrack. Air suspension failures and the rear-window leak are so established that shoppers name them in their first post. Over-the-air updates that keep modules awake and drain the 12-volt overnight are the modern garnish.
The social pulse is two conversations happening at once. Half the group is modding and towing and arguing about chips for the 5.7 — the classic healthy truck community. The other half is watching the Hurricane story unfold with the special anxiety of people who bought first-year powertrains. The Hemi's return was greeted like a rescue: 2,500 Canadian reservations in under 24 hours when order books opened. That tells you everything about how the 2025 strategy landed.
Value call: 2026 pricing runs $40,275 (Tradesman) to $87,075 (Tungsten), destination excluded — and dealers are discounting, with a Tulsa listing showing $11,000-plus off a Tradesman as the market prices in the headlines. The smart money: a 2021–2024 Hemi truck, inspected for manifold bolts, air suspension, and rear-window leaks — or a 2026 Hemi now that it's back. The 2025 Hurricane trucks are the ones to avoid at any price until the lawsuit and the CR score are history, not headlines. And whatever you buy, budget for the eTorque MGU as a wear item, because the rebuild shops already do.
The honest bottom line: best-riding half-ton, worst-timed engine swap. Buy the V8 Ram that Ram is selling again, skip the first-year turbo, and let the 2025s be someone else's cautionary tale.