Little Ram with the Big Guns

Greetings, epinions readers, it’s my pleasure to be writing my first opinion under the ‘new system.’ Fittingly, in these times of great change, the subject of this latest review is a truck that revolutionized the compact pickup market with its redesign in the late 90's. Of course, I am talking about none other than the Dodge Dakota.

Dodge captured a very interesting market niche with this truck, whose styling is basically a miniaturization of the big rig look of the full sized Ram. Until the Dakota, you had your full sized, and you had your compacts. One or the other. You could have a tight, maneuverable and
economical ‘trucklet’ with limited hauling capacity and tight interior space or a full sized, gas guzzling, hard to park beast with room for a ten gallon hat and the driver’s pot belly. With the Dakota, you get a little more of both worlds. 5.2 and 5.9 liter V8's offer class-leading towing and hauling capabilities, while the interior offers more passenger space. All of this is packaged within a relatively maneuverable mid-sized truck.

The Dakota I drove was a 5.9 liter R/t(for road and track), Dodge’s take on the sport truck theme. It was an attractive candy-apple red and came with an extended cab, rear bench seat, power everything, cruise, automatic, am/fm/stereo/cassette, and a heavy duty suspension that included a big front stabilizer bar, lowered ride height, and big meaty 255/55/17 rubber. If your idea of a man’s truck is big, tall, and macho, this particular version of the Dakota probably isn’t the one for you, as the lowered ride height, big wheels on low profile tires, and body-colored fender flares lend this more of a low slung, muscular street-truck look. If there’s one thing Dodge definitely did right(there isn’t though, there are many) it was to style the Dakota just like the ram, with bulging, muscular fenders, a mini-big rig grill, and a tight, curvacious profile that sets it apart from the boxier Ranger or Chevy S10.

I slid into the driver’s seat to find that front seats are comfortable and supportive, though they evoked none of the excited superlatives that the seats in sporty vehicles should for me. They were OK, but nothing extremely special. Lateral, thigh, and lumbar support were not lacking, but they could have been better.

Amenities inside the cabin included a center console between the front buckets that included three cupholders, two adjustable and one solid, and a small removable plastic bin. The material inside the storage bin looked a bit cheap though, nothing but hard plastic. I know, it seems a petty gripe, but in a truck that costs as much as your average well equipped family sedan you expect higher quality materials than some of the ones I found here. It seems to me sometimes like Chrysler likes to go cheap on interior materials for those little nooks and crannies where they guess owners will never look. That may not sound like a huge deal, but it is when competitors don’t do it.

Cruise control buttons on the steering wheel were a nice touch. There is an airbag deactivation switch, in case a baby seat ever ends up riding shot gun, which is the easiest place to put it since the rear bench looks so cramped that it will only accommodate the smaller ones and putting it in back without the suicide doors to ease access would be a real pain. Controls for the power locks, windows, and mirrors were on the door armrests and were clearly labeled and easy to read, as were the radio controls and the instruments, which included a tachometer, fuel gauge, speedometer(of course) and battery voltage, oil pressure, and engine temp. gauges. The steering wheel spokes are spaced so you get a clear look at all instruments in the straight-ahead position. The only thing I missed was a redline, which was not marked on the tachometer. The power windows lacked an auto-down feature, which I also would have liked.

The stereo had a clear sound but was lacking in really deep bass. All controls worked well, and ventilation was well distributed throughout the cabin with no excess heat to the right foot like you have on some systems. The defrost did seem to work a little slow though.

Now for the fun part... cranking up that big honking 5.9(that’s 360 cubic inch) engine. This big push-rod, iron block motor is proven, if not exactly advanced, technology. It’s tried and true, and well, probably as good as Chrysler will ever be able to get it. Well, that DOES tend to happen when an engine’s been around for over 30 years. The idle was lumpy, even a bit uneven at times, but it never came close to stalling. At idle to low rpm’s the big power plant doesn’t necessarily purr like a kitten, but it growls and gurgles like a contented tiger that’s just been well-fed. Acceleration from a stand still is effort-less because there’s so much torque just off idle, and at speed when you floor it hard enough to make the transmission downshift it’s awesome, though the engine noise escalates with the higher rpm’s from a strong roar to a booming whine that reminds you that it does it’s best work down low in the rev range, and it’ll keep pulling if pressed, but not without a little drama. The only time when I felt power was not ‘kick me in the back’ urgent was when accelerating on steep inclines or between 20-40 mph when I gassed it but not hard enough for a downshift. In other words, you may have to hit the pedal a bit harder if merging on really steep inclines or accelerating in urban traffic situations from low to medium speeds, where you make the most use of the mid range of the power band, though the high and low ranges offer all the power you could ever need. In the bigger Ram, the 5.9's performance is disappointing, but here in the lighter Dakota, it makes a few extra horsepower and torque and the effect is pure dynamite.

Once up to highway speeds, which can be reached surprisingly quickly, everything settles down to an unexpectedly tolerable noise level. Wind noise was well muted, probably because the truck’s comparatively low profile(when compared to the 4X4 version) doesn’t push as much air. The engine settles down to a subtle rumble. I really couldn’t detect any one noise in irritating amounts... a little wind noise, a little tire whine, a little engine growl... nothing to make me think I couldn’t drive the truck several hours without anything driving me nuts. I don’t know if the weather stripping had much to do with it, but one thing I couldn’t help noticing was that it was applied more meticulously on this truck than any I’ve ever seen, with the lowest tolerances for gaps around the driver’s and passenger’s door window frames. It seemed to be a relatively peaceful ride for a pickup.

I think I made the salesman a bit nervous when I took the off-ramp at 60, but the big wheels and tires held on well. There was some body lean, as you cannot defy the laws of physics, heavy duty handling suspension or not, but those huge tires never felt even close to their limits. The only time when they seemed taxed was when accelerating from a stand still, when the empty cargo bed and big displacement motor could make for easy smoking of those wide, performance tread tires if I wasn’t careful about the gas pedal. Though it was equipped with the limited slip, I would hate to spend a snowy winter trying to get around in this thing.

I also felt a bit uneasy with the mushy brakes, which were not very progressive or linear with pedal feel. It puzzles me that anyone could try to make a car sporty but forget that you never know when you might need just as much ‘whoa pedal’ as you do ‘go pedal.’ But here it was, brakes that made me feel like bean bags had rolled under the pedals. This is one area that definitely needs improvement, as I think Dodge could take a lesson from other manufacturers in how to design good, strong, aggressive braking systems.

The rear bench is not comfortable for very long for more than children, but it definitely has an advantage over the rediculously useless rear jump seats offered in the competition. The width of the truck affords plenty of shoulder and hip room, but head room, knee, and foot room back there are at a premium. Unfortunately, this model had no extra doors, which made loading of cargo and passengers very difficult. They’re available on the Ram, but as far as I know if you want extra doors on a Dakota you need to specify the crew cab version. The 4.7 liter V8 introduced on the 99 Grand Cherokee and later offered in the Dakota seems like a smooth, refined, strong engine, but Chrysler seems to be just in the process of getting around to fixing initial quality problems on it so I personally would wait another year or two if I were interested in it.

Overall, this has to be one of the most awesome sport truck packages available, if that’s what you want in a truck. Big motor+ big wheels+ big tires equals VERY big fun. Where else but in America can you get a 6.5 foot bed, big V8, tight suspension, performance slicks, and power everything for a sticker of roughly 23 thousand. The Dakota trumps the competition in this market niche in various areas, basically offering bigger everything in a managable package. My main dislikes were the mushy breaks and limited traction, sure to provide problems in adverse weather conditions. Don’t expect that a heavy duty suspension translates to heavy duty capacities, as the sporting nature of the R/T’s low slung underpinnings keeps its capacities below those of non R/T models. However, it's big V8 engine and strong robust frame do lend themselves more easily to grunt work than the smaller V6 offerings from smaller competitors. And besides, in the name of creating an awesome sport truck, some sacrifices must be made(though there’s no excuse for poor brake feel) so if you have to have an all out, ground pounding sport truck, the Dakota is guaranted to bring big grins to any Mopar fan’s face. Chrysler most definitely has a winner here, and if they can work on improving brakes and shake their quality stigma the Dakota could be their knock-out punch in the compact/mid size segment.