Everything We Broke on Our Ram TRX Crossing the Country Off-Road

Everything We Broke on Our Ram TRX Crossing the Country Off-Road

Everything We Broke on Our Ram TRX Crossing the Country Off-Road
ram 1500-trx Full Overview

We beat up our long-term RAM 1500 TRX good. I mean real good. How, you ask? Well, you might remember that little Rivian R1T on the Trans-America Trail story we did? You know, the one that took over 40 days because we covered 7,700 miles off-road? Well, our support vehicle for the trip was our 2021 Ram 1500 TRX. Did we beat it like a rented mule? Yes. But for various reasons now lost to the winds of time (or is that an archived Slack channel?) we decided that a not-so-quick, totally hardcore cross-country off-road journey was the proper way to welcome the mighty TRX—our 2021 Truck of the Year—into MotorTrend's long-term fleet. Little did we know that due to the supply chain crisis, fixing our TRX meant it was out of commission for about four months. Please read on.

The first ouchie that occurred was a flat tire on the first wave of the Trans-America Trail, somewhere in Virginia. Hey, those things happen. We'd brought several spares along, so that wasn't too much of an issue. In a separate incident, now in North Carolina, the driver's side running board got dented just behind the front wheel. Expected when you travel off-road.

The second wave, running from Georgia to Oklahoma was the only wave where the TRX didn't suffer any tire drama (nice driving, Renz), but the Ram did sustain a few injuries. We wound up putting a nice dent in the passenger side rear fender while trying our damndest to maneuver through some dense trees. Eventually we had to break out the chain saw. We also obliterated the windshield.

We had a list of numerous pieces of content we wanted to produce based on the various adventures we got up to on the trip. And on that sheet was a bullet point that said, "Rivian R1T vs. TRX Drag Race. " One thing we really liked about the Ram when we named it our Truck of the Year was how it put its massive power down, hitting 60 mph in 4.0 seconds flat, making it the quickest truck MotorTrend had ever tested up until that point. At that point in time, we had yet to test the Rivian R1T, our eventual 2022 Truck of the Year, with a 0-60-mph time of 3.1 seconds. But again, we didn't know. A drag between the two super trucks seemed like a natural, brilliant idea.

Full disclosure time: The white R1T we drove on the TAT was a pre-production truck that had some software in it that was never intended for production. We were shown an Engineering Mode that featured something called "Max Power mode". What did Max Power do exactly? Dunno, other than it played a 30-second Simpsons clip where Homer changes his name to Max Power, and it makes the Rivian even quicker. Did the driver of the Rivian surreptitiously sneak it into Max Power mode? Who's to say (hi, Mom!)? The trucks were lined up on a gravel road (this whole thing really wasn't well thought out), someone yelled "go" over a walkie-talkie, and the Rivian humiliated the poor Ram in a straight line, literally leaving it in a cloud of dust and cracking its windshield in three places. Should probably wait a while before telling the folks back in the office what happened, yeah?

Wave 3 took possession of the TRX in Bartlesville, Oklahoma, (eat at Murphy Burger!), and tech editor Frank Markus (weirdly) decided to wash the truck to photograph it next to a Frank Lloyd Wright skyscraper. Why was that weird? Well, if you spend five minutes on the TAT, you're well aware of the Sisyphean nature of trying to keep a vehicle clean. It's just not going to happen. Wave 3 admitted to one flat tire but actually got two flats; poor Wave 4, which snaked through Utah, had to change a flat as soon as they saw the Ram parked in an airport parking lot. Then, once underway, a wheel nearly fell off the TRX. I'll let Scott Evans explain.

"We changed the left rear tire at the airport on arrival as it was flat. There were bad vibrations while driving, which we chalked up to the bucketloads of mud caked in all the wheels. Roughly an hour later, at 80 mph, I noticed the left rear wheel wobbling like crazy in my door mirror. I pulled off the road quickly and safely before it came off. Three of the wheel studs had sheared off, and the other three's lug nuts were very loose. It was moments away from breaking off the truck entirely. We had it towed into town, where a local shop recommended by Nina Barlow replaced all six wheel studs and lug nuts that night and got us back on the road. We junked the rim as the lug holes were no longer round. Other than that, two more flat tires. But no further damage."

You've seen Rashômon, right? Because that was Scott's version of the Wave 4 damage report. William Walker's is quite different, "Lots of rock strikes on Leg 4. By the end, the windshield was more cracked than not, and you could feel the cracks on the inside of the windshield. I also "squared off" the exhaust pipes in Moab." This poor truck. William continues, "By Wave 5 [from Utah to Oregon], the brake rotors were warped badly and the vibration under braking was disturbing. There was a leak into the passenger compartment, and it tends to be damp underneath the rubber floormats. And we noticed the sunroof got damaged because of mud and dust." Man, that's pretty bad.

We almost forgot there was a third driver on Wave 4, Alexander Stoklosa, who had his own damage report, "By Leg 4, with the fan speed set to 'high' or max, the airflow through the interior vents was akin to me opening my mouth and talking (no hot air jokes, please). Wouldn't blow cold air, just lukewarm air. Air velocity was similar with the heat on. My guess is that the system had either lost some refrigerant, suffered debilitating blockage, possibly damage to the blower, or all three. I believe someone had shaken out the cabin filters around that time, and it made no difference."

No one owned up to it, and the damage no doubt occurred while rock crawling in Moab, but the front bumper had to be replaced. It was that repair, more than any others, that really held up the truck. A few months after the truck came back, Walker noticed that at low speeds he could hear a noise coming from the rear driver's side wheel if he had the window down. We investigated, and it was a failed bearing that was attached to the rear axle shaft, and the entire thing was replaced as a unit. We think this repair is related to the busted lugs way back on Wave 4, but we have no way to prove it. Moral of this story? Sometimes it's more than consumables you need to worry about if you plan on overlanding across a continent.

Looks good! More details?

For more on our long-term Ram 1500 TRX:

  • The Ram 1500 TRX joins the MT Garage
  • Which is quicker—a Charger SRT 392 Scat Pack or the TRX that towed it to the track?
  • …And what about a Ram 1500 TRX or a Rivian R1T?
  • The TRX isn't a great forest service truck
  • But it is a good mudder
  • Huge power saves this ship

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