Wellas, let’s talk about this truck. I know this is a diesel Channel but wanted to talk about my 20,000 Mi experience and we need to talk. It hasn’t been all roses and peaches. U more! This video is more of a point of view, but take a look at it for yourself use.
I wouldn’t say I’ve used this truck, but I definitely use this truck um. It’S probably the dirtyest. It’S been pretty dirty right now inside, but hey you get a real world view of an actual consumer uh owner of a vehicle, as you guys could tell. I don’t have to sit here and convince you. This is a work truck.
I got receipts, there got paperwork in there and a little bit of well looks like someone’s stashing some fancy cookies down. There promise it wasn’t me this is my lunch or breakfast Hershey’s and a cup of coffee anyway so 20,000 miles. What have I ran into guys? A new transmission and a new screen absolutely love the truck. So let’s get into the nitty-gritty of the transmission.
My point of view, because nobody knows what really happened and I’d like to talk about the process as well. So here we go so this truck, as you can tell, is a hair couple hundred miles away from 20,000 Mi, so we’re just just for Simplicity reasons, we’re just going to call it 20,000 m r. So there’s two things: I’d like to accomplish talk about my uh, primarily transmission experience and uh, a review of 20,000 mil. I get. I still get asked to today’s day.
How do you like your TRX? How do you like this? How do you like that um guys? I absolutely love this thing. You know I’m a practical kind of guy.
I was raised in a very well hold on a second, I was raised in a very conservative family and uh 100. Grand for a toy is uh, not up my alley. It’S not something. I uh typically I’m comfortable with so this is going to be a lengthy video, how I ended up buying this truck. Why I ended up buying this truck and how my experience so buckle up.
I got about a 30 minute drive. Let’S hope I don’t use up all 30 minutes making a video, but no here or there that’s my fuel mileage 9.6. That’S actually pretty good fuel mileage. Considering the way I’ve been driving.
This thing lately, Mr Hot Rod around here um. So when these things were released, I was like that’s an awesome truck, but that’s just way too much money for, for Average Joe, and I included myself in it. My neighbor God bless you, Mr Mike kept talking about these trrex, I’m like I get it man. I I get it it’s phenomenal, it’s an awesome idea, but 100. You know at that time it was 85 to 88,000 for the truck.
I wanted right for the options I wanted. Excuse me. I’M me a little bit of coffee here and so on and so forth. You guys know a hit around that time when these trucks got released in 2021, still part of the whole nonsense going on there in the world all the commotion. So here comes early 22.
I finally get my hands on one of these and the way the way I got my hands on one of these, I never got to drive it or hear the engine run or anything like that. I walked into a dealership looking for parts and this there’s a charcoal one on display. I’M like oh here we go. I was pretty much greeted by a TRX, I open the door and it’s like voila, it’s right there in your, so anyways Bare Bones: TRX uh frustrate it frustrated me didn’t even have a keyless entry system on it I mean this is Bare Bones TRX that I Ran into, but I asked the sales guy I’m like, can I get under that truck? Take good look at it guys.
Once I took a took a look at that uh frame suspension. I know this thing’s categorized as a 1500 and ain’t. No, that ain’t no 1500. That’S a solid 2500. You know axle suspension AR shocks.
You know the whole the whole nine yards. So with that being said, I went ahead and uh bought me a TRX and before I pulled a trigger on that, one, which I really didn’t want to buy that TX solely because of the Kil Sentry. I didn’t care about the lesser than TI your no carbon fiber, all that, but that that kilos Cent really bugged me. So I called my uh my regular sales guy, I’m like hey. What would it take for you guys to order me one of these and uh?
What’S the markup going to be keep in mind, this is still 22. It’S still in that mess where everything had a crazy, markup shortage of everything under the the sky right. So he called me back 5 minutes later said: hey Paul, um, we’ll take care of you. Don’T markups and off we went, you know right now: it’s you’ll find dealerships going under MSRP, but back then was you’re lucky to buy something out of MSRP, so I went ordered my T-Rex and here I’m driving it. So that’s how I got into it.
Um at on the surface, when people don’t understand fully what the vehicle uh was intended for, how it was engineered on the surface 100 Grand uh seems to be like a lot of money, but guys for $ 100,000. This is a bargain to to build a truck. You know the the backyard mechanics first thing you’re going to do like well, I could do this and that in my backyard, the hell you can this Frame is a 2500 whatever you want to argue with me. This is, this is a much stronger frame than A500 lb frame and the reason I say it because it’s categorized as a Baja truck so and that’s all relevant when you take a nice hard hit because you Center a little too hard. Your frame doesn’t fold in half you’re.
You don’t have issues uh that you would with the 1500 right when you when you, I call it dering, but you know rallying this thing around the dirt: you’re not flexing that frame that it starts. You twist it enough where the cross members and things start falling off right CU. All the welds are cracking from so much Flex, so that’s all relevant, considering the the fact that what this truck was intended for so with that being said, um you’re not going to you’re not going to build one of these trucks with 200,000 or excuse me with 100,000 and have brand new components yeah. You could stick something together patch, something together, but it’s not going to come close to that. So that’s when I once I realize that you know once I realiz that uh yeah Ram could possibly be losing money on this.
Yes, don’t fall off your seats. Ram could possibly be losing money building these things. I knew this thing wasn’t going to be on the market for long, especially with the EPA breathing down there neck on the V8s and the pollution. So that’s why I got me one um, so yeah, that’s a very important part that a lot of people oversee they Overlook. Are you going to use the full potential in this vehicle?
99 % of you yeah? No, and I’m one of those guys. I don’t what do I do? I drive around like an average Joe uh P punting around two tune around whatever you want to call it. You know just delivered a box of Brak shoes to peterbill um, you didn’t know, I’m involved in transportation and Diesel repairs uh.
You know I jump in this thing I take off. I don’t have to worry about uh a lot of diesel uh. A lot of the downside on the Diesels is the is the winter driving and preheating and cooling off and anyways. So I I give a few minutes I jump in and I take off it’s lighter than a diesel. But it’s still, you know it’s probably 65,000 lb pickup, but you know you whoop it around town, pretty good easier, but that’s that’s not to be argued with a TRX Factor.
That’S just a 1500 lb trck uh. 1500 serious truck. You know your Tundra, your Silverado! Your F150 will be the same thing. Smaller, it’s more Nimble, it’s easier to get around town versus my F350 long bed that I have um anyways back to the point.
So the value is definitely there. You can argue till you’re blue, but the value is definitely there. Um, what other trucks can I compete with this? The only truck on the market that can compete with this is the raptor r. That’S it!
No, not your plastic doll, cyber truck nonsense. You keep that for something else. Ai is great and all, but that ain’t real world that ain’t real Sensation that ain’t real adrenaline it just it has its time and place, but it doesn’t compete with these trucks. You know you, don’t you don’t get a grin after you punch it yeah you get a nice quick, pull you get a you know you might get different General, like butterflies from the pull on the Cyber truck. But you don’t get the sound.
You don’t get the raw experience, so I’m not going to argue with you, you do you, but um there’s definitely value in these V8s, because this is a real deal. This ain’t, AI in plastic, doll scenario. You guys know what I’m talking about now. As far as my troubles with the transmission um excuse me time for some more coffee, my experience with this transmission or the prior transmission. Yes, this truck has a brand new transmission came from Germany um, I think Ram.
Did it themselves cuz. No one could explain what happened, what caused it? Um shoot. I’Ve even seen the emails that the dealership was getting from from Ram like it’s, not unheard of, but it’s uncommon guys. I fully believe full-heartedly believe Ram, did this to themselves and here’s how this truck was a sludgehammer from day one it.
You know this thing got horrible fuel mileage, but it was. It was a different horrible. You know everyone was saying. Everyone’S fuel mileage was a little better than mine, and I broke this thing in properly and I just my Catal Catalyst converters were just through the roof on the tempts. Um and there’s no refinement like just here just bear with me.
You know it was a sludgehammer. There’S no refinement to that throttle whatsoever. It was like full-on full off kind of dead in the water when you get on the freeway. This would be a perfect scenario when I’d be on the freeway and I’m in eighth Gear, with the old transmission guys hear me out, the old transmission had different tuning guess what that tuning affected the engine too. So when they put the new engine in here, they updated the transmission, but they also updated the ECU file.
So whatever whoever programmed this thing from the factory gave it the wrong tune period, because this truck was never as refined prior to the transmission Swap. And I never had issues with the transmission all along. I thought it was my drive Sha. When I was taking off. I was getting a a thump like a swift.
Kick up my butt from behind uh. Yes, the drive shaft had something to do with that, but the transmission when it was inspected there was a lot of material in that oil. I mean a lot and RAM. Had a million questions for Ram or Ram had a million questions for the local Ram dealer. I mean we’re talking like hey, take a picture of the supercharger pulley.
Take a picture of the head, take a picture of the underneath. The Catal, like I mean we’re talking like weird. What part of this thing is not modified? Do you not understand? Nothing was ever changed or modified besides regular maintenance, and even there you know, prior to the oil CH or prior to the transmission change.
The only thing this truck seen is a set of intake filters and oil changes. That’S it: okay, fine, it’s gotten an attemp, but it has nothing to do with Main uh mechanics right, the mechanical side of it. So with that being said, Ram went back and forth and said all right, we’re sending out a a brand new transmission from Germany. I don’t know exactly what they did with that transmission, but I’m guesstimating they they took it into their lab and they figured out what the heck is happened. Cuz CF Transmissions are really good tranes, so the first uh giveaway sign that I had with this truck was my cat.
Attemps were just through the roofs, we’re we’re talking, like average, 17 18800 F, which is uncalled for Unnecessary. Second thing: the the light throttle position or the light throttle is just kind of dull like I was telling you on this scenario when I’m doing eighth gear, and it was just like there’s no refinement it just didn’t take off. It was just like you know. It’S like nothing or all, but obviously that’s exaggerated, but there there there was none of that. You know, know, light Advan and timing and and proper uh fueling.
It was just my pipes were really raw. That was another thing. My tail pipes were really raw. I mean how do you explain this to somebody you bought a brand new vehicle and what the manufacturer put in the wrong tune. Absolutely they put in the wrong programming uh.
The transmission was also never as refined as it is now right. Now it it’s very refin. Prior it it didn’t didn’t like bang or or Average Joe, just wouldn’t notice these things. They would not notice these things and uh. When I brought it up to my dealership, and I mean what do they, you know what is a dealership now, there’s?
No, it runs. It runs like what more do you want from me here, but uh so yeah hook up your little OBD2 see what temps your uh Talis converters are. Are you know 17800? That’S a red flag. I mean we’re talking.
17. 1800 me cruising on the interstate. You know, can you can you drive an eighth gear? You know it was kind of orderline annoying to drive an eighth gear on the interstate, it’s just kind of like too luggy. Now it just kind of like right now you get on the throttle and it works its way out where before it was just like you know, and then off you go because of downshift.
Now you’re rocking the you’re rocked in the interstate right, you’re you’re, you’re bugging along so very uh sludgehammer feeling to the truck prior to this so yeah the screen’s, the screen, the screen. Always the these trucks got an issue with the screen: either it works or it doesn’t. Mine was just like pressing as if you’re pressing buttons going down the road, but it but it would it wouldn’t proceed. It wouldn’t complete the tra, the full action it was acting as if someone was pressing buttons, but it didn’t go through with the action. You know what I mean like it would recognize the pressure and it would show like these buttons, especially these buttons down here, were getting pressed, but it didn’t proceed like right now.
It would be in this, so it would act as if I’m hitting comfort and I’m Letting Go. You know, and it’s like it would go into comfort and come back into this and go into navigation like it was. It was tweaking out. So hopefully that makes sense. So that’s all I had with that.
Overall, I use this thing as my daily runaround vehicle. It’S quick uh, let me just say the local uh sheriff department and the state patrol have been very uh patient with me and polite and uh. I thank him for that. I’M selective and uh, where I to along on the country, roads and but anyway, stayed away from tickets. Thank God for that and knock on everything, believeing uh.
But it’s just a pleasure. You know what I mean end of the day. If you could get in a vehicle and smile, because you just drove a pickup truck, that um is definitely worth it. These trucks are just either you’re going to love them or you’re, going to hate them, because if you don’t get it there’s no value, I mean what am I getting high 9 miles to the gallon? Typically, it’s around 10 to 12 is what I hang out with, but last few days I’ve been romping on it pretty hard um, that’s another thing guys prior to the transmission swap I was always between seems like I was between 8 and 10 on my everyday commute.
Cuz, you know a lot of idling and this and that then, after it’s more like 10 to 12, you know this the same 300 mile cruise down in TR cities. In back. You know I’m hanging around 12 and some change prior to that it was 10 um. That’S also another thing prior to the transmission and it’s not the transmission, it’s the programming that they updated that changed the fuel mileage uh prior to that change. It didn’t matter.
If I drove you know, set the cruise and just let it do its thing or I was pretty heavy on the throttle and just kind of dump the same amount of fuel, and there was evidence, my tail pipes were raw which pretty considering the temperature. Well, it’s actually self-evident the temperature that my cats were running at the 17 18800 um. That’S definitely a sign of that anyways guys holy smokes. Let turn into long. I mean I knew it was going to be a long lengthier.
Video. A lot of people ask about this truck, at least here in the community, so figured I’d, updating my guys on the internet, there’s so much data on these TRX on the internet, but a lot of like salesman. You know onesie twosies, even one week Driving Experience. I’Ve had this thing since new, you know and I’m pulling up to my uh second year of ownership. So with that being said, it’s it’s not a month.
It’S not two and it’s not a year. I’M pulling up on this on the second year and um. You know absolutely a blessing and, as I was saying, if you don’t get the value of the this truck, there’s no point. If you don’t understand the value of this truck, there’s no point you I’m getting 10 m to the gallon and, like you need tires or something it’s pretty spendy on this thing quarter throttle baby uh the truck’s a lot more responsive. If I could call it that um definitely moves out its own way and uh get bugging along anyways guys uh.
This channel is about diesels, not much about these toy trucks, but uh figured I’d. Keep you up to date. Anyways, May little bless you and may you all have a mighty fine day. Cia bye,