Ep. 295: The Best Value Off-Road Trucks!

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Welcome to another fun episode of TFL Talking Trucks Podcast. We're back in the studio

and we're also live to our Patreon supporters like you.

Yeah and this is episode 295. We've got a few interesting things to talk about today,

especially because Andre and I had quite the day yesterday. We finally got around to

something that we've been wanting to do and that a lot of people have been asking us to do.

We got our deuce and a half on some appropriately sized off-road obstacles.

Yes. We went to the couch engineering proving grounds here in Colorado and Jay Couch,

he's bonkers, but in the best way possible. And because we, you know, it took us a while to

get our deuce on an off-road trail, we decided not to just do that by itself, but instead

to compare it to one of Jay Couch's many, many unimogs.

Yes. So unimog versus deuce and a half bobbed truck. So that debt video is coming up.

But also on this episode, I think we may have a heated discussion because we are on the hunt

for the most affordable full-size off-road truck, which is best value. So not the total bargain

basement price, but also has some good gear, good tires, good equipment. And we are,

it's not as clear as we thought actually.

Yeah. It's an interesting question. And I, you know, trying to find a reasonably affordable

1500 or F-150 truck that is decent off-road is hard. It's difficult to do.

But more than just decent, I would say, because you would say any truck with four-wheel drive

is decent, right? So how do you draw the line? That's another point of discussion, right?

Do you need a locker, locking differential? Do you need aggressive tires? Do you need,

you know, where do you actually need?

Ideally, all of that. But I might be stuck in 2019 because still the sticker shock can be a

little hard to get over. But there's a little bit more on this show, too. You recently went to Moab

in our GMC Canyon 84X for a little comparison against Tacoma TRD off-road truck. It was a

co-lab with another channel. And we have some news. And yeah.

Yeah. Where do you want to start?

Well, let's start with the truck question. So, Cole, we're...

That could describe a lot of the podcast. Off-road truck.

Yeah. Yeah. I figured it out.

So, Cole, if you go to like the Hemi Hype story, because we're talking about the warlock.

So, Ram is kind of doubling down on their sport... They're called it sport truck category,

but really what they mean is a floating, right? So, they've had the rebel. They've had the RHO.

There are rumors and, well, actually more than rumors of the TRX coming back.

But the warlock is a new trim level that they're doubling down on. They had a warlock before

in the Ram 5900 Classic, which was a previous generation truck that was still on sale like last

year. But now, the classic Ram 5900 trucks are no more. It's all the new Gen truck. And look at

it. It's a pretty nice package, actually. Yeah. And it's something interesting to talk about

and explore, because this is one of the trucks that we have here at the office this week.

We've been testing it quite a bit, and it's fresh in our minds.

Yes.

It's also a category of truck that we like quite a lot, because it's a rugged enough

truck that you could go run some light to moderate trails here in Colorado, which we do a lot,

because we live right here in the mountains. Still a truck that you can pull a trailer with,

you can fill up the bed. It's a crew cab, so you can haul around people.

So, we love this segment of trucks. And the idea with this warlock is that it would be

a little bit more affordable, quite a bit more affordable than an RHO or an upcoming TRX.

But I have a bone to pick with this truck.

Okay. What's your bone?

It's, for one, I'm going to go ahead and say it. The one that we have here at the office is $60,000.

$60,800 approximately.

Which in 2025, in the realm of pickup trucks, $60,000 is not a ton of money.

Relatively speaking.

Relatively speaking, in this day and age.

It is a ton of money.

Mentally, I'm still stuck a little bit in 2019, so $60,000 seems like a lot for a truck.

But in this day and age, $60,000 is not that much for a truck, but you get into this truck

and you see some of the areas in which they've cut costs. And some of them are a little hard for

me to move past. I don't mind the cloth seats. I don't mind the basic interior. I actually

really like the fact that this particular truck is a six-seat configuration, so we've

got a bench in the front.

Bench in the front, yes.

So a lot of stuff like that I think is awesome. The small screen, again, that doesn't bug me,

but there's some convenience items. The biggest one that irritates me and for most people,

you might roll your eyes, think, whatever.

The buttons on the back of the steering wheel that you use for volume and to skip

tracks, which I use all the time, and I correlate that in my mind with any

Stalantis or FCA, whatever you want to call them, product.

I love those buttons. I use them quite a bit.

Always listen to music?

The first thing you do when you jump in the truck and I'm looking at you,

Kase, is you pair your phone.

Yeah, yeah. And I set up my playlist.

That's what everybody, I think, does because...

And I get music going.

Exactly. Music, maybe podcasts. Maybe you're listening to TFL talking trucks.

And maybe. And I probably won't because I'm here for it.

So I don't need a...

But everybody else is listening to it?

Some people, yeah, some people are. And at least tens of people are listening.

Maybe even hundreds.

But that I find particularly offensive, that they would cost cut by getting rid of the volume

switches. A couple of the switches that I use the most often on the back of the steering wheel.

How much is that really going to save them versus how much?

I don't know. I don't know.

It's probably, I mean, if you think about building 10 or 20 or 30,000 trucks,

it probably will add up eventually on that cost.

Or, wait a minute, or it could be a supplier problem, right?

I mean, after COVID and through COVID, we've learned about different supply chain issues.

So it could be where it could be a tariff related thing, where the part is coming from

another region or country. But I agree with you. It was there before and you're taking something out.

And I think it's a nice convenient thing to have. You can disagree with me.

You can say that I'm making mountains out of moholes. That might be fair to say.

There are a few nice features on the truck, though. I like the fact that both the primary

portion of the mirror and the lower convex portion of the mirror are power adjustable.

On this more basic truck, except the towing mirrors at this truck, the warlock we're talking

about that we have on testing, they're not power folding. So this came into play when

Roman and I took our F-150 tremor, which I would wager this warlock competes against.

And we can argue about this later because the pricing doesn't quite match up.

But we were going through a tight trail up Deer Creek Trail here in the mountains of Colorado.

And I had to ask Ian, our videographer, to fold my mirror manually, because I couldn't

obviously reach the passenger side. I was able to reach the driver's side.

So I was kind of wishing I had power folding mirrors.

Yeah, which is fair. I mean, that much I would expect as far as trying to keep

it a more affordable trim. But there are a few examples of cost cutting on the truck

that for $60,000 are things that I would kind of expect.

Okay, now let's take a step back. Base price, if you don't have the towing package,

if you don't have some of the other additional options like bed liner, believe it or not,

or tunnel cover, which are all additional costs, and including the V8 Hemi that this

truck has equipped, which is the most expensive engine option in this particular truck.

Yeah, if you take away all of that and put in a Pentastar V6 into this warlock 1500 ram,

the base price, including destination is $54,010. We checked it on the configurator this morning

right before this podcast is airing. And that includes the $2195 destination.

So now you have an interesting vehicle, which is a little weird,

because you kind of have a low torque, low horsepower, relatively speaking engine

in this beefy truck on 33 inch tall tires. But I guess some people could go for that, right?

Yeah, I would at least want to spec the hurricane if my truck in the hurricane is

less expensive than the Hemi. I think it's $1,600 for the hurricane.

Yeah, that to me would be worthwhile over the Pentastar, because it's a lot more power and a

lot more torque. So if you did that, your ram 1500 warlock would be $55,705.

So still no buttons on the back of the steering wheel, no?

Yeah. But that's what it is, about almost 56 grand, including destination charges.

And you would say, wait a minute, where is General Motors in this?

Yeah, so if we were looking at a Silverado custom trail boss with the turbo four cylinder

turbo max, yeah, that that would be around $54,000, similarly equipped. But that is a G80 and not

a selectable rear locker. Exactly, which General Motors have been doing for decades, right?

I mean, that's kind of their solution. And it works. G80 works. It's not maybe as graceful.

Yeah, because it could be sudden when you're kind of in a low traction situation and your rear axle

is looking for power, that engagement of that G80 locker is a little bit sudden. And it could kind

of like, you know, kind of propel you forward in a sudden way. But nonetheless, it works. It's

fine. So that's a little bit more affordable, but by what $15?

Yeah, $15 less than the Pentastar version of the warlock that we were talking about,

you know, $15. It's lunch, I would say. Yeah, for one person. There's a few things.

Texas Roadhouse, you could get a nice appetizer if you don't fill up on the rolls in the cinnamon,

what the cinnamon butter? This is not brought to you by Texas Roadhouse, by the way.

But it could be in the future. This is brought to you by you, the Patreon supporters.

Yeah, this is what this podcast is brought to you by.

Okay.

Tremor. What about the V8 Custom Trail Boss?

Yeah, so keeping on the Chevy for one more moment, if we did get the Chevy with a V8,

it would be just under $56,000. So very similarly priced to the Hurricane version of the warlock.

And you can make an argument there which one makes more sense. The Hurricane is going to have

more horsepower and more torque. More power, more torque. The 5.3 in the Trail Boss is

going to have more character. So it depends on what you're going for.

Exactly. So here's where we're stuck. We're stuck around $55,000, $56,000.

And let's review. Basically, you're getting a small suspension lift with both of these trucks.

More aggressive tires.

We're talking about one to two inch suspension lift. Really aggressive tires. So you're

actually sacrificing a little bit of efficiency with these trucks because

these tires have high rolling resistance. They're very knobby.

Yeah. Which is an expected trade-off.

Yeah. We're talking about Dura Tracks here in some of these cases, at least with GM and Ram.

And you're getting some sort of a rear locking differential and especially tuned shocks and

suspension. Yeah, and skidplating. Yeah, skidplating as well.

So most of the basics that you need.

Yeah. And so now you have a truck that can do everything. It can do your daily tasks,

your daily driver. It will carry payload and it will tow a trailer.

But then you could also take it on the weekend and go play in the mountains or the trails.

And since we've had the Ram Warlock here at the office, we have been comparing it to our F-150

Tremor. Even though our F-150 Tremor is a good chunk of change or more expensive than the Warlock,

but the Tremor in a lot of ways is similar to the Warlock in that they're light off-road

packages. It's not a Raptor. It's not the full flagship poster truck jumping across your

desktop screen, whatever you have as your screensaver.

Yes. And it's the Tremor is, and we'll talk about FX4 because FX4 package in the Ford lineup

has been there for decades as well. And that was their kind of more value oriented off-road

package. But let's talk about Tremor first. It starts actually with a V8, believe it or not.

So thank you Ford actually giving us a V8 right off the bat.

Yeah, pretty happy with that.

But not thank you Ford. It starts at $67,510.

Yeah. And of course, we're not talking about any prices that include particular incentives

because those incentives depend on where you live and they're changing at this point

week to week, day to day.

So here's an example. We purchased, when Roman walked into our local dealer at Ford

to get this F-150 Tremor 2025 model, the sticker price is just a hair over 68 on our exact truck,

the one you see here. But because of employee pricing when he was there and some other discounts

that Ford had running at the time, he walked out at $63,000 approximately,

which is about five grand off the price MSRP. But if you did that today, it would be

different. You never know. And the same thing goes for the Ram and the Chevy.

All of them have incentives. All of them have different discounts depending on the region.

So what the pricing we're talking about is the sticker price MSRP

that you see on the Monroney sticker in the window.

It's not likely to be what you're going to pay out the door.

But it's a basis of comparison for us. And that's how we're looking at it.

Yeah, that's how we have to look at it because again, we can't get into the specifics of

what it looks like at every dealership across the country. But our F-150 Tremor, I agree,

it is on the pricey side, is much better equipped than especially the Warlock that we've been

comparing it against this week. The interior is better, better features.

And actually a little bit more fancy. You open the door on the Tremor,

you have a little bit of orange stitching in many different places.

The seats actually have a big Tremor logo. I mean, Tremor is also a cool name.

And it's still basic in some ways. Our Tremor has cloth seats, which I actually like a lot,

but it doesn't look like a fleet truck interior.

No, it truly looks like a sport truck in the sense that you could go use it off-road

in a very fun manner. And also it has big screens. We have a few clips playing if

you're watching us on TFL Talk or our Patreon page, www.patreon.com.tfl car.

You have big digital screens, which you could argue is bad or good, right? What I like about

the Warlock is that you have analog speedometer and tachometer, which in theory should not break.

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I mean, they've been around for many, many years.

But Ford recently had a recall. Gosh, Ford, I mean, I just wish you would stop having recalls.

Where when you start the truck on 2025 and some 2026 models, the screens would stay black,

not come on. So they're fixing it over the air update. Easy fix. They found it.

They're going to fix it. But that could be an issue with a screen, right?

Digital problem. But to its credit, the tremor feels like a much nicer truck. It feels more special

and a lot more premium. So it is more expensive, but it's also much nicer. But maybe a better

comparison would be something like an F-150 STX with an FX4 package. That's a much more basic

truck. So arguably more comparable to the Warlock or to the Silverado custom with Trail Boss

package going on. So that STX with an FX4 package would get you a lot of the off-road

features that we're talking about. It would get you skid plates. More aggressive tires,

which is almost 33 as well. But not really a suspension lift, right? It's not really a

customized suspension per se, although the shocks are a little bit tuned according to Ford

for off-roading. But it's not like any sort of lift. So you're kind of still at the same

right height as you would be normally speaking in a 4x4 F-150. But the STX is also a little bit

more fun, right? You have a little bit more color options, but also kind of basic truck.

And that one starts including destination at $52,540. But here's a rapid fire and news item.

First of all, you and I were on the computer, on the configurator,

and the destination charge on the F-150, wow this. Yeah, it's about $2,600 destination fee,

which is a lot. Because we were looking on Ram's website, that was around $2,200.

Exactly. Which is just a few months ago, okay, I think two weeks ago I was on the

Ford site and the destination charge was $2,195. Now we're looking at, this is September of 2025,

$2,595, basically $2,600, like you said, non-optional destination charge. It doesn't matter which

dealership you're at, that destination charge will apply to you. That's a lot.

If you're in Dearborn, Michigan, and you're staring at the Ford plant

where the truck is rolling out of, you're still paying that destination charge.

Is it, am I crazy to say that I think that should just be built into the sticker price,

if it's necessarily a part of the price of any truck, even if you spec no options?

I don't think you're off base here. Because when they say the truck starts at...

It's in the middle of the screen, $2,595, right there, destination.

So when they say that the truck starts at $45...

It's actually not $45.

Yeah, in a way it's just not going to be $45.

But then you see also options, there's incentive packages, you could subtract $3,000 here,

you could subtract another $1750 there. But once again, that depends. It's not,

it depends on your maybe financial situation. If you're leasing or buying,

it can be any number of things.

Yeah, so that's a pretty pricey destination charge.

Yeah, and this is the highest I've seen.

Like even the highest that we saw previously was like a Hummery V at about $2,200,

which is a heavy vehicle. I kind of get it because it takes a lot to ship one of those

vehicles across the country. But an F-150, also kind of a big vehicle, but not as heavy.

Not nearly as big as a Hummery V.

No, no, no, no. So this was a shocker. But now I'm in a weird position because

does the Warlock RAM compete against the FX4 STX or does it compete against the Trimmer?

Yeah, the two Fords almost straddle the Warlock.

In price.

In price and in features. So it's an interesting comparison. Maybe people can let us know in

the comments what they think would be the better comparison there.

Obviously, we're going to do comparisons with the Trimmer because we own that truck.

We have it here at the office. I think it's a good comparison, if not perfect.

And actually, speaking option for option, like Roman walked out the door at 63 grand

with the Trimmer and the sticker price on our Hemmy Warlock is $60,800.

So they're actually within almost $2,000 there, $3,000. So actually, the way we are

in the real world right now, they're actually pretty close.

Yeah, and that's why you really, it's easy again to feel the sticker shock of looking at the MSRPs

that we're talking about on these trucks. But it's always worth going online,

seeing what a dealership near you might be offering as far as incentives go.

Because you can usually walk out the door with a truck for less than what the sticker price is.

And actually, if there are actually several of those trucks on the lot,

the dealer might be willing to do more wheeling and in-dealing because

they want to move that inventory off the lot. But if you're custom ordering a special color

or a special, I don't know, trim level, that might be an issue.

You might be out of luck.

Yeah, so it just depends on how you're shopping. But really, gosh, well,

we have several videos. So we did a drag race, right? We drag raced our trimmer versus the Warlock.

Yep. V8 for V8. That was, that's coming up.

And you guys went off-road in both trucks?

Yes. We're also scheming to do a little bit of a night gauntlet.

Schemin?

Yes.

Right on.

With these V8 power trucks, because V8s are really coming back in full force almost.

Ram now has one, they're shipping to customers. GM has V8 as actually one of their main engines

and also Ford.

I've seen before people poke fun at us for towing with off-road trims of trucks.

And I think actually there's a very good reason why we do that.

I think we test a lot of off-road trims of trucks because that's just a whole other

aspect of a truck that we can test because we don't just have the truck channel,

we got the off-road channel and all.

Many channels.

You know, five others on top of those two.

Exactly.

But on top of that, on top of it just being more of a Swiss Army knife,

more tools in the Swiss Army knife that we can use and test and film,

the other thing is off-road trims of trucks are designed to tell.

Yeah. Our trimmer is rated at 9,900 pounds, almost 10,000 pounds of towing.

It's not typically going to be the absolute best trim to tow and it's not going to be the trim

rated for the most amount of towing, but they are designed to tell.

Exactly. And also, I don't know how many countless times,

when we are out and about driving around and you see an off-road truck,

maybe even a Raptor pulling a side-by-side behind it, for sure.

It's a daily occurrence here in Colorado.

Maybe it's not a daily occurrence in Boston, Massachusetts.

In New York, in Manhattan.

In Manhattan, but it's a common occurrence out here.

Yeah, for sure.

So we see that a lot.

I mean, you want to use your truck, like you said, as a Swiss Army knife.

You know, you can take it to Costco to buy some groceries.

You can go here, you can pull a trailer.

You can do any number of things.

Yeah, that's our goal.

You could go tailgating at the game.

Yeah.

Okay.

Now that is football season again.

Yes.

Why are we even talking about trucks?

We should talk about odds of games.

Sure. Yeah, I'd be really good at that.

Because we're experts at sports.

We need to hire Alex back if we're going to do that.

Yes. Where's Alex?

Should we talk about the GMC Canyon AT4-X and Moab?

A little bit.

So that's not a truck in our fleet of trucks.

And we, as always, we kind of rotate them around

because we own trucks for about a year.

We do everything imaginable with some of these trucks.

And then we move it on.

So this AT4-X is really replacing the Raptor Ranger that we had.

And you won't believe it, Andre.

What?

I thought this was never going to happen.

Cole, who's behind the camera over there,

he and I shot a motorcycle video.

And we were in Lafayette where the motorcycle was.

And I was here in Colorado near our office.

Yeah, heading back from the shoot.

And I saw a Canyon AT4-X in the same color that we bought.

The orange color.

Right, orange.

And I looked at it.

I was looking at the driver.

Was Roman driving it?

It was not Roman driving it.

And I was looking at this, you know,

trying to look for some of the stickers that we have on the truck,

like the TFL sticker and the Blaze sticker.

On XF1?

I didn't see it.

I think somebody else bought a Canyon AT4-X in pumpkin orange.

I, that is shocking.

But I think I'm going to say that it was us

motivating somebody to do so.

Maybe.

Let us know.

I don't know if we have that kind of reach.

Well, let us know.

Do you listen to TFL talking trucks?

And did you buy an AT4-X in that orange color?

Certainly don't start copying our style because

it's questionable.

Our style choices are based on

what, how a truck looks on camera.

Yeah.

And is it bright?

Is it fun?

That's our style choice.

But I actually, I don't hate the color on the GMC Canyon that we have that orange.

I think it's unique.

I think it stands out.

I think it clashes a little bit with the red on it.

But anyway, I thought that was funny that I saw another one on the road.

So tell me, you drove it about 350 miles from here to Moab on the highway

and then you took it on which trail?

We did Top of the World.

Top of the World.

Yeah.

I've never been there actually.

So it was interesting.

It was interesting because I would say the first maybe 70, 80% of the trail was very mild.

And also, I wouldn't say the best views of any trail in Moab.

When you get to the very top of the trail, top of the world.

Now it gets steep and deep.

It is, it is a good view up there.

But the last 20, 30% of the trail is non-stop ledges.

That you're climbing over.

And we went there to Moab with our GMC Canyon to shoot a video with Ryan from Driving Sports TV

who has a Tacoma that he kitted out with tires under body protection.

He's got a rack over the bed system.

It's not a lifted truck and he's up in the Pacific Northwest.

So that truck's not necessarily built out strictly for rock crawling.

So I would say actually the Canyon up against the Tacoma did exceptionally well,

especially because that Canyon front and rear lockers, unlike his,

his TRD off-road was just a rear locker.

And our Canyon is all stock.

Completely bone stock.

The other thing about the Canyon is that it's a pretty tall truck for a factory midsize.

So as far as clearance goes, it did really well.

Well, I'm happy to hear this, especially with the traction it has with the tires, the lockers.

And then it was comfortable on the road trip.

The interiors is good.

GM does make kind of a stiff seat, but the materials, the technology,

the comfort in general of the cab was not bad at all.

So I had no qualms with road trip in it.

So MSRP on that truck was about 57 grand,

which is actually almost identical to the Ranger Raptor that we used to have.

Yeah.

That we traded in.

And 57 grand is actually a little bit more than some of the other full-size trucks that we just

discussed.

So this is a special truck.

I mean, this is not a vehicle you buy willy-nilly.

You really should buy it if you intend to really use it.

And the Canyon is much better off-road than the Trail Boss,

the Warlock 1500, and the F-150 Tremor that we're talking about,

especially because it's got a front locker, front and rear.

That's pretty big and good underbody protection, good camera systems, nice interior.

So that Canyon does a lot of things pretty well.

If you don't necessarily need the capacity, the utility aspect of a full-size truck

and you mostly want an off-road truck, you'll get a better deal

going with something like that Canyon 84x.

I like the Canyon a lot as a rock crawler,

but in general, it's still hard to get over that Ranger Raptor.

That powertrain.

Yeah, I agree.

If I was faced with the choice for the same money, Ranger Raptor or 84x Canyon,

I would go Ranger Raptor.

Yeah, and again, specifically because of that powertrain.

It's just more fun.

It's more fun.

With that factory and warranty-covered tune that we put on the truck,

455 horsepower, 536 pound-feet of torque in a mid-sized truck.

It's fun.

It's fast.

Yeah.

What did you think about, because whenever I drive the 84x either on the street or on the trail,

the suspension, it's got the DSS-V Multimatic shocks.

It does, but it's...

It's a little firm in my opinion.

Yeah, it is.

It's kind of a stiff truck off-road, but even on-road, we did.

Okay.

That should have helped a little bit.

It helped.

Yeah, I agree.

I wish a truck was maybe a little bit softer.

So the way these DSS-Vs... So DSS-V is basically spool valve technology,

which is different than the kind of the washer-shim technology that many other shocks use,

but they're not live adjustable.

There is no switches you turn.

There is no buttons you push.

So those shocks are set at the factory, the way they want them to be set at.

And on the street, it's pretty precise.

It has good precision, but it's a little firm.

And at high speeds, both you and I have experienced the DSS-V Multimatic shocks

doing their thing, and they do it well.

But if I was shopping for a high-speed off-road truck in this segment,

again, it'd be the Ranger Raptor.

I like this Canyon as a rock crawler.

And for 99, well, maybe let's say 100% of the time that you're driving on a rock-crawling

trail, you're just taking consistent slow-speed bumps,

and it would be nice to have a truck that's maybe set up a little bit softer.

Yeah.

And so I think where GM may be going in the future, and this is my speculation,

not anything they announced, but when I was in Vegas at the Mint 400,

which infected our producer Cole with a love of off-roading,

he even has a t-shirt.

Mint 400.

He's got a Mint 400 shirt.

The truck that GM had there was that electric Silverado ZR2 concept,

which had live adjustable DSS-Vs.

So maybe GM is looking into that technology, and maybe they'll push it forward,

and then Cole would be very happy with some of these trucks.

And that's all we're looking for.

But he was about to show us the ZR2.

I think it was not the trail boss, but it was a ZR2 concept.

ZR2 concept truck, which had live DSS-Vs.

That's a big unit.

Yeah, this truck, you know what, when it finished its race,

they drive over the stage where the drivers are congratulated.

Did the stage bow in the middle?

The stage was built out of this, I think, three-quarter plywood.

And the plywood was creaking and bending.

Yikes.

Remember this Cole?

I would not want to drive that truck over plywood.

Plywood is not adequate to hold up.

So the stage was not quite ready for a 10,000-pound race truck.

But it actually did quite well in the hands of Chad Hall,

who's a very experienced, very legendary off-road driver.

Absolutely.

So that was quite nice.

Yeah, that is pretty cool.

But we've got to switch topics.

Nothing we've talked about so far is as cool as what we were doing yesterday.

Oh my gosh.

Jay Cowich has a collection of Unimogs.

Yeah.

Unimogs as well as a lot of other really cool...

So we have some videos about this, Cole.

So if you look up Unimog collection, we actually have a video

where we walk through some of these trucks, I think.

I even met Jay at Moab.

I think there's another video where you see several Unimogs

parked next to each other.

Yeah.

Yes.

Basically, actually Jay was explaining how it started

with little Suzuki off-road buggies.

Yeah, he's an interesting guy.

He started wheeling off-road in Suzuki Samurai,

and then his immediate next move was Unimogs.

So I don't know how that transition actually occurred, but it occurred.

It is.

It's a big transition.

I think he was saying that he initially got into Unimogs

because he was actually using them as implements, as agricultural tractors essentially.

And then eventually got into using them off-road

and kidding them out.

And that's kind of his core business now.

He built some insane Unimogs.

Well, look at some of these bumpers.

I mean, we were looking at, I don't know,

three-inch tubing or maybe bigger on some of these.

He's building bumpers that nearly wouldn't fit

into the eight-foot bed of my Cummins.

They're massive, massive steel bumpers.

Double-inch setups, crazy stuff.

So one of his companies is called Couch Engineering.

Couch is his last name.

And Couch Engineering, he does, over the years,

he picked up these secrets off-roading.

So he's implementing them, just tough components,

either beadlock rings for wheels.

Genuinely, one of the best people out there at off-roading,

absolutely massive vehicles.

He knows what he's doing.

And as funding through this job,

we get to meet a lot of people that build some cool stuff

off-road, do some cool stuff off-road and like to have fun.

And watching these guys mess around

is unlike anything we've ever seen.

One of the cool parts of yesterday was that

I had the opportunity to drive an eight-wheel drive,

50,000-pound four-axle with four lockers,

MAN military truck that was pretty, pretty sweet.

So cool, you can look up MANcat, MAN, CAT, MANcat.

Maybe it's two words.

Two words.

And I don't know if we have a video completely about it already.

And while a while back, we also did a video with...

It's not a cat.

Yeah, the internet is struggling with that.

But a while ago, we also did a video with one of J's 10x10 military trucks.

But this one, he likes even more.

So it's an eight-wheel, eight-wheel drive,

four lockers on all four axles,

a military truck.

And that was a pretty cool thing to drive.

The other thing that we did was, like we said, compare...

Can you talk about the transmission on this truck really quickly?

Yeah.

Because this is kind of unique.

So as J described it, it's essentially a manual transmission.

Well, it is a manual transmission.

So you've got a clutch, you've got a gear lever,

and you look at the top of the shifter.

And like I drove there in my Cummins, which is a five-speed.

So you've got the five speeds in reverse on the top of the shifter.

The pattern, the pattern there.

The pattern on the top of the shifter in that is one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight.

Okay, so eight gears.

Eight positions for it.

And it's interesting, it's kind of a four-speed matched up with a high and low.

So it's...

Like a splitter almost.

Yeah, two different gear sets.

But what you do with this MAN Army truck is you pick whatever gear you're going to go into.

You can start off in a pretty high gear.

And what you can do is you can hold your foot on the brake.

You can dump the clutch.

And there's actually, as J describes it, there's a torque converter apparently in this power train.

So you can let the clutch out, be holding the brake in gear.

And you're sitting in gear.

Yeah.

And let off the brake and go to the throttle.

And at that point essentially drive it like an automatic.

So it's kind of an interesting split.

In some ways it drives like an automatic, but it is still manual.

With a clutch pedal.

Yeah, going through the gears you do manually and it has a clutch pedal.

By the way, we're also live on Patreon and all of our Glasser is here.

Glazer, I'm sorry.

So happy Friday, he says.

Which is true, it is a happy Friday.

Yeah, it was leading into the weekend.

Yeah.

So yeah, so that must have been a special experience for you.

It was.

And you also took it into a tank trap area that J has at his property.

And it's interesting, as J put it, you have to plan your turns.

Because it's wide, it's long, and it takes a while.

And you have to do quite a few hand over hand turns to the steering wheel.

Before you actually get that vessel to change course.

I was video, I was running one of the cameras while you were driving.

I was outside observing you guys.

And it's quite a sight.

It's hard to see scale because at his tank traps, he's got these gigantic,

basically holes or trenches.

Yeah, they're 10 to 12 feet deep.

10 to 12 feet deep.

And there could be anywhere from 20 to 40 feet long or longer.

But when I saw other people walking next to you and videoing you,

now you get the scale.

Yeah.

Where this vehicle is, I don't know, 40 feet long maybe.

Probably.

It's got eight wheel drive, obviously.

Yeah.

It's also a very heavy vehicle to begin with.

Yeah.

And but eight wheel drive, it didn't seem like you struggled at all over most of these.

And we didn't actually have the lockers on the front two or the rear two axles.

No lockers?

You don't need them.

Okay.

It never spun a tire, makes sense at 50,000 pounds.

It's got a lot of traction.

Also, one of the nice things with having eight axles is you've

Oh, four axles.

Yeah, sorry, eight wheels.

One of the nice things about having four axles is that you've probably got

some wheels on the ground with good traction at all times.

So there were some tight turns over narrow sections of his tank trap that had drop-offs on

either side where you hang one of the front tires and one of the rear tires off either side

of whatever you're traversing over.

But as long as you've got a few wheels on the ground.

It's like a caterpillar.

It is, yeah.

Like a walking caterpillar, not the caterpillar engine I'm talking about.

Yeah, like the bug.

Like the bug where it always has a leg on the ground no matter what you do.

Exactly.

So you kind of like a caterpillar, the bug.

You can lift the front four wheels up in the air cresting over a hill.

It's a spectacular thing to see.

There's a video on that that's going to be coming up on TFL Offroad.

Something to look forward to.

That was a bucket list item for me.

That was really cool.

But you also spent some time off-road in our deuce and off-road with Jay in his unimog

because we were doing a head-to-head between the two.

And I think one of the most interesting things on that unimog is the super crawler gear.

Yes.

So we talk about low-range every day, right?

Basically, it's a transfer case which has the normal gear set we're using in two-wheel

drive off-road.

Yeah, highway speeds.

Highway speed.

And then you go into for low, which basically sometimes it's like a 2.7 to 1 reduction or

sometimes in the Jeep it's a 4 to 1 reduction.

So you can go a lot slower.

Well, the unimog has that, but also it has something called working transfer case,

which is another reduction on top of the already reduced.

So like a double low-range.

Double low-range basically.

So, and we never used it.

Well, so the unimog also has eight gears, manual transmission.

And then you multiply it times two, that's 16, and another time.

So that's basically 24 gears.

And I asked Jay after we negotiated most of the obstacles, I was like,

can you show me the working group low-range?

Yeah, and I was filming you guys with a drone as you were doing that.

And I thought you were sitting there stationary.

No, we were moving.

So he put it in like second gear working group transfer case.

And there's like eight levers in the center console because he's got hydraulics.

He's got several, you know, two transfer cases.

Yeah, because the bed on that unimog has a dump function, but not,

it doesn't just dump backward.

It can also dump to either side, which is pretty cool.

So this unimog is capable, Jay quoted this, four inches of travel per minute.

Yeah, so he said clutch out on the throttle.

Yes.

It could take as much as a full minute for one revolution in the tire in that supercrawler gear,

which seems absurd, very unnecessary.

Yes.

But you have to remember that unimog had 140 or no, 160.

Like 135 horsepower.

It's not a very high horsepower engine.

No, so gearing is its friend.

And Jay said that actually a few times he's used that supercrawler gear,

but it's more of a, that's more of a tractor kind of functionality.

If you're using big implements, using it for a more agricultural use.

So another use case, he also had an attachment for a snow thrower.

Yeah, which was a terrifying looking gigantic drum with blades on it.

It looks like a meat grinder that you could walk into, which is scary.

But when you're cutting, like let's say you're going through like a four or five foot tall snow drift.

Yeah.

You don't want to move through it too fast because you're going to get bugged down,

you know, churning through the snow and ice.

Yeah, because you're using quite a bit of power to spin that drum.

Yes, exactly.

So that's where the working gear comes in, because you can move as a like an inch.

At a glacial pace.

Exactly.

And then you can clear all the glacier to the side.

You could just clear it and keep moving.

So that's kind of where this vehicle comes in.

So our, our deuce is really cool.

And I love that truck.

Every time we go up to the ranch and we see it there,

actually Andre drove it.

Actually I daily drove it.

Yeah, Andre drove it into work today and seeing it out there in the parking lot is awesome.

But I think Jay converted me.

I think I'm team Unimog, man.

By the way, the Unimog we were in, I still had a straight six diesel.

Yeah.

So six in a row ready to do some work, ready to tell.

But price wise case, our, our deuce, we, you know, it could be priced brand new,

well, brand new because it's redone by boys engineering equipment was about 50,000.

Now, the Unimog that Jay was in competing against me was about $80,000.

Yeah, but it's, it is a more useful machine.

Like we said, it has dual lockers, which the deuce would inspect at, we could have.

Yeah, our deuce just has a rear lock.

Yeah, we could have added the front locker, we chose not to.

It's also got coil springs and disc brakes and it rides, it rides better.

It's got portal axles.

It also has a higher high speed.

It also has a higher high speed, top speed than our deuce and it has a dump bed.

Yeah.

And it has many other features.

And the thing that I'll spoil because I don't, I don't think it's going to stop anyone from

going to watch in the video because us talking about it as one thing, actually seeing these two

massive rigs go head to head is worth you going to look at when that video is up.

Two full truck channel.

Yeah, but another point that I have to give the deuce is that it off-road.

One of the biggest differences between the two is that the Unimog rather was a lot more maneuverable.

It has a slightly shorter wheelbase and really good turning radius.

Yeah, it was quite a bit narrower.

Yeah, and narrower too.

And we talked about it as we were driving it.

And actually the deuce and a half, the Bob Deuce General Giant,

he's got a four-speed Allison automatic transmission with a torque converter.

And Jay speaks badly about automatic transmissions and mainly because they do have a torque converter

and the torque converter feature, even though the eight by eight has a torque converter as well,

he spoke a little bit negatively about it because it has a tendency to,

when approaching a big obstacle to kind of bog down because the torque converter takes some

of that slack off the engine, in the manual transmission, according to Jay and makes sense,

is the gears are always meshed.

You know, the manual transmission gearing and the axles are always meshed.

So even when you come up to an obstacle, there is still that forward momentum that

can slowly take you over that obstacle.

At the end of the day, he was a little bit angry, but he complimented our deuce and a half.

Yeah, I think our deuce is, again, we're talking about two kick-ass trucks that I would be lucky

to see in my driveway at any time. But I do, I like those Unimogs a lot.

Those Unimogs are pretty cool.

Well, it's easy to like them because he's got like 30 of them.

Yeah, and they're all pretty cool.

So that was a hell of a day of work, ton of fun.

By the way, something else happened because his second company is called Dirtbox Overland,

and they do accessories like tray beds, flat beds.

They do rack systems for trucks.

They do tents for SUVs and trucks, you know, a roof mounted wedge tents.

And not just that, but also accessories like mounts for your bicycles, your heaters, your

fridges, everything integrated into one.

Yeah, and they're super cool setups.

We get the opportunity to poke around all kinds of different overland, camping, off-roading,

bed and camper and roof rack setups.

Just about any one of them that you can think of.

We've seen and we've interacted with, and a lot of them are pretty cool.

Some of them aren't all of our cup of tea,

but the ones that Jay is building are super rad and really well engineered and well thought out,

because partly for fun, but you know, he'll maybe call it R&D.

Jay goes out and tests those things extensively.

And I think that the mindset is overbuilding, right?

That's the mindset.

He's about to take some of those rigs down to South America for like six months or something.

And you know how we talk about like AEV, American Expedition Vehicle,

how their bumpers and other components are overbuilt, where they can last for years,

maybe decades without rusting or falling apart or doing this and that.

That's I think the mindset of dirtbox overland, because a lot of the components are actually

aluminum and they're designed to minimize welding, because when you weld two pieces

of aluminum together, you could have fractures, you know, and different issues.

And those guys know how to construct something that's durable because they're off-roading vehicles.

In 10 traps.

Vehicles that weigh, you know, 15,000 pounds or more.

Yeah, so that's the mindset.

And also comes along with that is price.

I don't have any prices to quote here, but don't expect it to be the bottom price.

No.

Because you're buying tough quality, you know, and a little bit something that's tougher and

more durable, and you're going to pay more.

Put it put it this way though, if it could survive J couch, it's going to survive

probably anything that you're going to do with it.

You're going to throw at it.

So as we wrap up this episode, I have a couple of rapid fire news items that I want to shoot.

Yeah.

So first, so Ford Rangers have been recalled.

There's also a stop sale.

Yeah.

So that's kind of a big one.

A lot of the, obviously there's been a lot of news about Ford recalls this year.

Yeah.

Because there's been a lot of Ford recalls this year.

And a recall, some of them have been very minor to be fair.

But I think last I checked, we were at 110.

I don't know where we are now.

Which but if you do the math is about one every other day.

How many days into the year are we?

That's unfortunate.

But a lot of the stuff that we looked at already had to do with bigger trucks.

Yeah.

But now the Ranger is involved.

And again, to be fair, a lot of the recalls that have come out have been for minor stuff.

One of the recalls was for one car.

Yeah.

But but we wouldn't really mention it unless there were 100,000 Rangers recall.

Yeah.

And a stop sale is a bigger deal.

Yeah.

So we usually don't bring up stuff like, you know what?

We had to reprint a sticker on five trucks because we messed up on the payload number.

That's not when we're never going to talk about that because there's thousands of these things,

you know, with every manufacturer.

But when there's a stop sale, so the issue they experienced was in the crash test,

they noticed a slight tear in the airbag on the side curtain airbag.

And where it matches with a B pillar internal structure, I guess there's something going on

there when the when the airbag deploys, it starts to tear because of that pillar.

And it losing losing air pressure or using just pressure and could become a safety concern,

you know, in a rollover or another situation where an accident is occurring.

So Ford, I think did the right thing.

And they actually look deeper into that problem.

They actually were very serious about it.

And so the solution I think is eventually it's not coming immediately,

but actually resulted the factory where they're doing a slightly different B pillar

internal structure that will not cause a tear in an airbag.

Yeah.

And it's something that they're going to have to address pretty quickly if it's a

stop sale because that's because that's not going to help truck sales.

If you're driving your truck now, you're going to get a letter in the mail or,

you know, online or in your app saying that there's a recall happening.

But the trucks are on the lot by law when there's a safety thing,

you cannot sell a truck with a safety concern.

So that's why the stop sale is happening.

So that's going to make it a big, big deal for them to get fixed

is something they're going to want to fix quickly.

But another little bit of Ford news, one that's on a slightly higher note.

Yeah.

Is that they've made the Ford Maverick about $1,000 less than it was for last year.

So we have a story on that on TFLTruck.com also because Zach is on top of it.

On TFLTruck.com.

Yes, that's a very, very cool news website for trucks and reviews.

So the Maverick has been beaten up recently for crazy price increases

over the last four years and appropriately so.

Yeah, I've been a part of that.

So yeah, because its price over the four-year period increased almost 38%,

which is a big chunk.

Mainly, I think because it's kind of a almost not the only pickup in its class.

There's also the Hyundai Santa Cruz, but it's one of the more popular ones.

And whenever you dominate a segment, you know, Tacoma is very similar to this.

You're able to increase your price because there's a lot of demand.

There's a lot of demand for it.

People want it so you can increase the price.

But now for 2026 model year, there are actually certain trim levels

are actually becoming a little bit more affordable.

And the base Maverick now has a turbo engine, which is the

still the two liter that they had before.

But with front wheel drive only, which they're bringing back.

And look, we have a table right here on their website,

which is now $1,000 less than the base hybrid you can buy.

So technically speaking, you could jump in a new Maverick at about $28,840,

which doesn't sound like a very small amount of money.

But it's once again, a thousand less than before.

It's still quite a bit more than the just under $20,000 starting MSRP

they had when the truck first launched.

But it is a move in the right direction.

But look at this, a Lobo price stays the same.

Lariat all wheel drive hybrid, which is a more fancy Maverick, $350 less than before.

Lariat EcoBoost, $920 less.

Yeah. And the tremor is $350 less expensive.

Okay. So not a huge amount, but still.

Yeah. But that's still nice.

So it's good to see.

Yeah. So it's a little bit of positive.

And also last week, I was in Michigan at the Ram event for their

Hemi relaunch, you know, reintroduction of the 57 Hemi into their light duty trucks.

But another piece of news was that Ram is now finally is introducing some factory-backed

accessories via direct connection Mopar, which in one of those items is the exhaust.

Custom exhaust system for the Ram RHO.

Cole and I were there.

And actually it made that RHO sound quite a bit more aggressive.

Did it sound better in person?

Because I've only heard a video clip of it in the video clip that I heard of that exhaust on

the RHO sounded a little for my ear too raspy.

And it definitely to me didn't sound trucky.

But how does it sound in person?

Because I liked it.

Yeah. In person, it's better.

And you can kind of see it here.

We're walking around the truck and it's really an attractive system actually.

Those five inch outlets are pretty good looking.

And it's a three inch diameter system actually going to back to the catalytic converters.

And it's a true dual system too.

And I think it sounds probably best like most systems under load under acceleration.

And there's a little blip when it shifts.

And you can hear that kind of almost like a backfire sound.

Which is not really a backfire, but kind of attractive sound.

So I actually thought it made the truck more attractive.

Does it sound like a BMW?

No, it's a little deeper.

It's still a three liter straight six.

I see where you're going.

So it's maybe a little BMW-ish.

I would say it's more deep.

It's a deeper tone.

I got nothing against BMW.

No, no, but it's not a car.

It's an interesting sound for a truck though.

It's a truck.

So yes, the TRX will be coming.

And they said this will have a V8 engine.

And it's probably going to be the Hellcat.

So that's going to be a whole different story.

But this is a good alternative though to any co-boost Raptor.

Especially because I love straight sixes in general.

Yeah.

And actually, like when you're bringing up German manufacturers

like Mercedes, BMW, Audi, especially Mercedes

and some of their high performance AMG products,

they're able to make an exhaust system on a turbocharged engine,

which is very pleasing and aggressive.

And I think Ram and Ford also came out with that valve system

with a loop-t loop.

Remember that?

You know, the Raptor EcoBoost where it was equal length.

You know, they're going to great lengths to actually make

those engines sound more appealing.

Yeah.

Yeah, which is worth doing in an enthusiast truck like that.

Because if you're going to be trying to sell trucks to people

that are buying something they're passionate about,

rather than just the most objectively utilitarian,

useful thing, then sound is important.

And it's not free.

The base exhaust system, that optional Magna system,

Magnaflow system that we're talking about,

was about $2,000 bucks.

So, but when you're buying a $72,000 R.H.O.,

or maybe it's more expensive if you're getting a luxury version

of that for about $82,000 before discounts,

$2,000 doesn't seem like a big in the big scheme.

At that point, it's a bit of a drop in the bucket.

But I would wager it makes your truck more appealing to an enthusiast.

As such, I think it's a worthy investment.

Well, I'll have to withhold my own judgment until I get to hear it in person,

because again, we can try to gather as much as possible through video.

But...

Well, it's different when you're watching it on your phone,

and you have phone speakers or headphones.

Yeah, because on my phone, it didn't sound that good,

but I would want to hear it in person.

It's a whole different experience.

I think it's a little bit better in person than you could imagine.

As could be said about the car that we thought we were going to hear up,

start up at some point in this podcast, and we haven't yet.

But we haven't heard it yet.

The Viper, our company-owned 1994 Viper,

is right on the other side of that door, and they're putting tires on it.

Which means they have to move it.

Yeah, which means they have to move it.

It is a pretty pushable car, so they might just be moving it that way.

But that's another vehicle that, online, all the time,

people say how much they dislike the sound of it.

And I would be willing to wager, at least for myself, everybody at the office,

everyone I've seen go for a ride in that car.

When you actually get in it in real life and wail on it, it doesn't sound bad.

So, you've got to withhold your judgment.

Yeah, one of the issues that people may think about with that Viper

is that you're hearing five cylinders on the left, and five cylinders on the right,

because that's how the system is designed.

They're not, I don't think there's any crossing of the pipes, right?

To my knowledge, yeah, I think you're right.

So, but I agree with you completely.

Colin and I drove it to the drag strip, and it's almost like a surround sound.

Yeah, and when you're approaching Redline with an 8-liter V10,

Which is actually pretty high.

Yeah, it's like 6,000 RPM.

Oh, it revs.

You're not thinking, wow, this sounds terrible.

No, it's pretty amazing.

You're thinking, this is the time of my life.

Can you imagine, we're getting new tires on it as we speak.

Can you imagine an additional traction?

Because those old tires are pretty terrible, pretty hard.

With new traction, this could be a nice beast.

It could be marginally less dangerous.

Or maybe even more dangerous.

Because right now it's on a pair of Fred Flintstones.

Yes, but is it less dangerous or more dangerous?

Because you're going to have more confidence, you're going to go faster.

I'm going to say less dangerous than 20-year-old tires.

Yes, okay.

By the way, what about Ram bringing back that engine in a Ram truck?

Oh, the V10.

Yeah, the V10.

Since we're talking about V8s and Hellcats.

That is, I've got no problem with that.

Okay.

There you go.

Do you guys have a problem with that?

Probably not.

No.

Yeah, so I think that's about it.

Let us know what you think about the most affordable,

or I'm sorry, not affordable, the best value trucks.

We didn't mention the Tundra.

I mean, Tundra is there with their tiered D off-road packages as well.

But the Tundra tiered D off-road, the one we owned,

the 2022 model when it first came out, was a pretty decent truck.

But it's, once again, the tire is not as aggressive as I would want it to be.

And then when you go to tier D Pro, you have to buy the hybrid.

And then the price goes up to like 75 grand, which is out of the water.

You know, it's a whole different story.

Yeah, so let us know what you think in the comments below.

And also, go watch the videos that we did with big military trucks,

because if you watch that and it gets enough views,

then we can convince Roman to do that all the time.

We also have to convince Jay, or we get Roman to buy a Unimog.

Oh, wait a minute.

When he goes to South America, the cats away, the mice will play.

And he won't even know.

He won't even know.

How will he know?

Or maybe by watching our channel.

That could be.

Yeah, we do put all that on the internet.

We will never do that.

No.

Because he's got cameras at his property.

He's got laser beams, where if you cross a laser beam,

alarms start to pop off.

All kind of stuff.

We would never do that.

No.

All right.

Thanks for watching and listening.

And we'll see you next week.

That's all.

As always.

Wherever you need it, try it now for free at Wix.com.

Federally insured by the NCUA, Equal Housing Lender.

Ep. 295: The Best Value Off-Road Trucks!

Ford F150

Toyota Tacoma

Gmc Canyon

Dodge Ram

Ram 1500 Ram

Chevrolet Silverado

BMW M3

F-150 Raptor

Ford Ranger

Ranger Raptor

Suzuki Samurai

Ford Expedition

Ford Maverick

Hyundai Santa

Hyundai Santa Cruz

Ford Lobo

Challenger Hellcat

Toyota Tundra

About this episode

Original notes