Video: What’s the Best Full-Size Pickup Truck of 2024?

We've got the 2024 Ford F-150 Platinum, the 2025 Ram 1500 Tungsten, and the 2024 GMC Sierra 1500 Denali Ultimate. Now, while these are top trims, they all offer very different powertrains. The Ford uses its hybrid PowerBoost powertrain, the Ram uses the new high output Hurricane twin-turbocharged inline-6 cylinder, and the Sierra goes old school with a naturally aspirated 6.2 liter V8. We poked and prodded the interiors to see just how luxurious they really are, took the trucks to a drag strip to test acceleration and braking with and without payload and conducted fuel economy testing with and without 20 foot camper trailers just to see how they perform as actual trucks and not just luxury vehicles. Let's dig into what we like and don't like about each of these trucks, and at the end, we'll tell you which one's our favorite. So it makes the most sense then to start with that biggest difference, the powertrains. And this is just the on-road driving portion, no towing. I think far and away, our favorite is the Ram 1500 and it's high output inline-6. So let's start with Mr. Hemi is dead. What do we think about it? The Hemi is dead, and I'm okay with it and we're all going to be okay with it because the Hurricane engine, the three-liter straight-6 turbo high output in the new Ram 1500 is fantastic. It's incredibly powerful, it's responsive, but it's smooth as well. It is just an absolute dynamite engine. The only thing you really miss about the Hemi is the noise. The SST high output engine is better in just about every single respect. And that comes through, I think, in out of our driving impressions where this one felt like a luxury engine that's been planted into a large pickup truck. Oh yeah, you could take this thing out of the truck and put it in a performance German luxury sedan and you've got a sports sedan engine. I mean, this has a sport mode. You put it in sport mode, it's responsive, it's fast. I mean, we're over 500 horsepower, over 500 torque. It is very, very quick. You know, you don't expect these to really be fun to drive in the sense of, you know, high performance fun to drive, but this is really getting into that category for a non-sport truck. Yeah. This, to me, the closest analog I had in my recent experience was the Audi Q7. Like that shouldn't be when I'm driving a pickup truck, but I really enjoy driving. There's tons of sportiness, tons of fun. Let's go to one that's a little less fun perhaps, with the Ford, and its PowerBoost hybrid engine. We've owned one in the past. Joe, how do you think about this compared to that? Yeah, it's funny. On paper, six cylinders, it's twin turbochargers. Completely different. Like yes, it's hybrid too, but it's definitely a more work oriented. It almost drives like a diesel with how it has really short shifts. It's really putting the electric torque output right off the accelerator. And you know, it's not really exciting or fun, but you've got power and it's there and the hybrid system is pretty refined. So yeah. It's the best execution, I think, of the PowerBoost I've yet tried. When we first got one and when we first started driving these things, the transitions between the gasoline and electric modes, kind of clunky. Not anymore, not with this one. I really didn't notice any serious jarring transitions between gas and electric. I think they've smoothed out things considerably for this latest generation of F-150. Yeah, it's enjoyable, it's quick. It's not the sportiest here and it's not even close, but that's okay. This is about other things than being a performance truck. And now the Hemi is dead. If you do want a V8 in a high-end luxury pickup, you're pretty much left with one option and that's the 6.2 liter V8 which I think we all love at least spiritually. What an option that is though. I mean, it is still, I think, a fantastic engine, plenty of instant on demand torque and power. It's got the noise that everyone has really always associated with big, full-size pickup trucks. (engine revving) And it's just usable over such a wide range of uses in terms of driving and towing and a bunch of other things. If you're looking for that traditional pickup truck sound and feel and heft, GMC is still delivering it for you. Yeah. And the engine and transmission work together so well. I mean there are similar transmissions between Ford and GMC at the 10 speed, but the shift logic and responsiveness of that engine with that transmission it's just spot on, it's just perfect. It's a bit mismatched in a luxury truck. Like, you know, you expect that engine, that noise, it's loud, it's brash, but it doesn't really, it's not a negative. I mean, it's still just great to have all that power under your foot just ready to go. Yeah, that beautiful subtle chop as it's just idling is one of my favorite things about this test when we were trying to keep warm. (engine idling) It's just listening to it. And when we were going down the track, everyone knew when that was doing its acceleration runs. It's just a great sound For sure. even if it's now the slowest here. So, we did take these to the track, we did do acceleration testing and some braking testing both, with and without payload, and I've already spoiled it, but the slowest was the GMC which is very funny, Joe. Why? Well, when we first started testing the 6.2 in these trucks, we were like, "This is a hot rod, this is so fast, it's cool. Is it supposed to be this fast?" And now it's the slowest and not by a small number either. I mean, slowest doesn't mean slow. I mean it's still incredibly quick for a large pickup truck. It's just the slowest out of these three, and especially when you look at the numbers that the Ram was putting down which is sports car numbers. Absolutely. So before I forget, the GMC did zero to 60 in 6.16 seconds without payload, which is actually quicker than previous versions of the 6.2 in the Sierra 1500 that we've tested, but the Ram blew everything away. So let's just get right to that. The RAM, zero to 60, no payload, 4.75 seconds. That's crazy. That's crazy. That's literally sports car numbers from just a few years ago. It's exciting to do it, it's brutal in terms of its acceleration, but it's, again, super smooth in its delivery and in the way it lays things down. It's not terribly accessible though, those numbers. Yeah, I had to do a little bit of- I don't think finesse is the right word, shoving would probably be a better one. It needs a lot of break torque to really get to that point. If you just mash on the gas and go. I was losing roughly half a second I would say. (engine revving) (tires screeching) But also, even when we threw a little over a thousand pounds in the back of it and did those runs again, the Ram was still quicker than either of these trucks without payload. Yeah, for sure. We got to about 5.75 with payload just mashing the gas- For sure. than the F-150's unloaded time of 5.62 seconds, which is very consistent from what I recall from what we did it with our previous truck as well. And that one, not a lot of brake torquing, not a lot of finesse needed to get it. The easiest thing to do was just to make sure it wasn't in full electric before I stomped on it. Pretty quick. 5.6 is not something to sneeze at. Yeah, for sure. And you know, you do notice that while driving around, there's more acceleration delay, turbo lag in the RAM versus the F-150 'cause F-150 you have the boost of the hybrid system helping it out. The GMC is just immediate. You're not waiting for anything. Yeah, the GMC smoked its tires right off the line. Just tons of fun even if it wasn't producing fun results. Yeah. They're all quick, they're all quicker than any trucks we've tested really in this segment outside of some higher, higher performance things like the TRX, but these are fun. You can have fun in a truck. Should you? Different question that we're not going to answer. Now, all that fun might come at a cost. It's probably not much of a surprise that Ford with its hybrid powertrain came out on top in our measured fuel economy testing. We had a 200 plus mile route, no towing or payload. 23.3 miles per gallon in our testing, a little bit better than its EPA numbers but a lot closer to the others than we expected, I think. Yeah, both the others really surprised me by how close they were to the F-150 hybrid, and you wouldn't expect that from a big V8 or something that makes over 500 plus horsepower and 6,000 pounds. I would've expected the Ford actually to have more of a significant advantage given how much of its time that it told us it was spending in electric mode. It said it got like 30 miles of electric operation out of that 200 mile test that was done, but you'd expected a larger gap if that was gonna be the case. But I think that also just signifies how well tuned a lot of the other engines are. GM, in particular, has been very specific about saying they're keeping their V8 and they're going to just improve it and improve it because it's really not that much different than a lot of the other engines on the market in terms of its fuel economy performance. Yeah, in our testing, we got 21.5 miles per gallon in the GMC and just 21 in the Ram, so neck and neck with two very different approaches, and really close to that hybrid. I do want to say we have been disappointed with this PowerBoost in the past in terms of its fuel economy with our long-termer, this is performing a little bit better and we've already talked about how the powertrain felt a little bit better. It seems like those improvements may have also come to fuel economy. But overall, the Ford wins but it's a lot closer than we thought it would be. It's worth noting that we put premium octane fuel in all of these just so we get the best acceleration numbers, but not all of them require premium. In fact, only the Ram requires premium. You can run 87 in the Ford and the GMC, but you're not gonna get maximum power out of them. Now that we've talked about on-street performance and on the track with and without payload, let's get into towing. Now, all three of these trucks excel in different areas, but since we're just coming off the acceleration numbers, let's stick to powertrain. What was our favorite powertrain for towing? That I think was the GMC. Oh yeah, GMC without a doubt. Absolutely. Why? Yeah. You know, there's no acceleration delay. You've got the full power under your foot all the time. The transmission is just so quick to downshift and it's just so responsive, it gives you the confidence that you are in the control of the vehicle and every little input makes a difference. And I was just a huge fan of just how easy it was to drive with a trailer around town specifically, or we needed to pass on the highway. Trust me, I love the V8 noises, that's great, but it goes way beyond just the sound that the engine makes on why the V8 was my favorite to tow. I actually thought that the Ram did exceptionally well in addition to that. It has plenty of power. I mean, look at the numbers on paper. They actually do translate into the numbers on the street as well. But it's working harder. It's definitely needs to build that boost in order to deliver a lot of that power, and so, the fuel economy suffers a little bit from that, but it also just, it's a bit higher strung. I mean, it's still smooth, it's still extremely powerful, but definitely harder than that V8 in the GMC was. Yeah, it takes a little more effort to get into that power in the Ram I felt while towing. It's not that these trailers were all that heavy. We weren't really pushing max towing capacity. It was more about putting kind of a sale behind us and seeing how that affected things and how the trucks behaved. And now, for fuel economy, this was, I think, even closer than when we didn't have anything behind the trucks. Again, the F-150 comes out on top at 11.5 miles per gallon. We used the identical route, just to be clear. It was a pretty windy day. Oh yeah. We'll get into that in a second. My hands are still sore. (all laughing) The Sierra, meanwhile, still came in second at 11 miles per gallon, and then the Ram brought up the rear at 10.6 miles per gallon. So obviously, huge penalty to fuel economy when towing. These are all a little bit more than half or cut down about half than- That's to be expected though. I mean that's what happens when you put basically a brick apartment building behind your truck and are towing things at 65 miles per hour. So that's not exceptional, but what is exceptional is the fact that there, again, wasn't much difference between these three very different powertrains in terms of the towing fuel economy results. Yeah. I think here the actual bigger difference among these three is the towing tech. So let's start there. Who's our favorite? Is it the Ford? Yes. Definitely. It's extraordinary. The towing tech in the F-150 is really, I think, what sells this truck. It has something called Pro Trailer Hitch Assist, which is almost magical. It uses it's cameras and onboard AI software to actually detect the trailer behind the vehicle and then it runs you through these instructions on how to actually use it, and it basically backs the truck up automatically to exactly where the hitch ball is and where the trailer's receiver is perfectly every time the first time. It's just extraordinary technology. And you combine that with their reverse camera systems and the trailer backup control as well that enables you to actually steer the trailer, but then combines that with the cameras that lets you see down the sides of the trailer as well. It makes hooking a trailer up the easiest of all these three trucks by far. What I thought was most impressive about the hitch assist, no setup required. Yeah. It was, you just follow the prompts. Yeah, every time we hitched up, with the exception of the Ford, it was always a two person job. There's one person telling you how far away you are, whether you need to go a little bit left or right. Hitch assist- (snaps fingers) I think I yelled witchcraft at you while you were doing it. 'Cause it shouldn't be that one person can easily hook up a trailer like that. It's so cool. It should take more effort and it doesn't. Talk about a marriage saver. I mean, it's great for both people who tow a lot and want to just be really quick and easy about it, but it's even better for people who don't tow a lot and who aren't really familiar with the process of which way do I turn the truck in order to get the thing to do its thing. It's great for those people, especially if you're like a fleet owner and you've got a lot of people who are, maybe, new to your business or a landscaping business and don't do that kind of towing and hitching up very commonly, it makes it just absolutely super simple to do. Now, there is towing technology in the other two trucks as as well. The Ram, I think, has maybe a little bit more than the GMC. It does have its trailer reverse steering control which didn't work quite as well as the one in the Ford did. Yeah. And we couldn't figure out what was happening. You know, it wasn't clear. You could only get a very shallow angle to back up the trailer, so if you're trying to back into a space, it's just not gonna happen. Yeah. It was easier to do it if you were just, you know, turning the wheel yourself. It didn't go beyond maybe like 20 degrees for some reason. I don't know if that was a setup thing, which we had to recalibrate the trailer a couple of times. Oh yeah. And it kept telling us to do so, which was not hard to do. I mean, unlike the Ford, you can just hook up the trailer up, drive around for a while, if you make a couple of left turns and go a hundred feet. It's a pretty simple process to calibrate that backup trailer with the Ram but it didn't work as well. It just didn't. But it's something that the GMC doesn't even have. I mean, the GMC, I think, has some really interesting technology for when you've already hooked your trailer up, but again, it also requires additional equipment. You have to put a special camera behind your trailer to engage what they call the Transparent Trailer function which enables you to have a camera view on your center console that sees behind the trailer as you're driving, so as if the trailer wasn't even there which is kind of great. Yeah. One of the things that the Ford and the GMC had that I really liked was the cameras in the mirror that would show you alongside the trailer in the screen, so the entire screen, you would see the side of your trailer, which is great 'cause these don't have very good mirrors. They're not dedicated towing mirrors. The F-150, you can't even get the optional towing mirrors on this trim level, and some mirrors on that one. Yeah. I think the lesson that came back to me driving all of these while towing is that you really want towing mirrors. And if you can't get them from the factory, buy some accessories because it helps. And I agree that that camera view in the GMC and the Ford was very helpful while towing. I did have one minor complaint, which is that it takes over the entire screen, so if you have nav up, you lose nav. It's not the worst thing because you'd probably rather miss your turn than hit someone in your blind spot, but if you are trying to make a precise turn, you are gonna lose that for a brief moment. So, something to keep in mind. Yeah. And the Ram had the little convex mirrors, it also didn't have the assist of a camera system, but the best natural mirrors for towing was definitely on the Ram. Yeah, I would agree with that as well. Getting into the towing manners now. We've covered powertrain, we've covered tech. Which one did we just prefer to get behind the wheel of when it was hooked up to a trailer? The GMC. GMC. Absolutely. It's a tank. Despite being the lightest truck here by not insignificant amount, it felt the most planted, it felt the most stable. It is by far the most relaxing, the most easy to drive. Like I said, it's a tank. It is. It is a tank. Now the Ram, while towing we scored with the highest ride quality, but I do think the GMC, you have the most confidence while towing. The Ram though, I mean, all those qualities you get of it empty also carry over when you're towing a trailer. It is whisper quiet, it is smooth, refined. I mean, you just don't get the constant up and down moving forces that you do in the others. At one point during our testing, one of the trailers, the one hooked up to the GMC, actually no longer had trailer brake control, so we were pretty much going with just the truck and that felt fine. You had to be a little bit more careful as you should be, but it wasn't a harrowing experience to know that there's no trailer brake helping you out. Meanwhile with the Ford, for me, that suspension just seems the least happy while towing. There's a lot more porpoising. You just undulate up and down. It was not the confidence inspiring experience in the GMC at all. Yeah, it feels like the trailer is pushing the truck around a little bit more in the Ford than it is in the other two. Yeah, it's just harsher. They're similar, but the F-150 is definitely more brittle. It's harsher, there is more movement. The GMC is just rock solid. That's some of the trucky things we tested on these trucks, but they are luxury trucks so I think it's time we talk about how nice they are inside. So in interior quality, this is where the Ram really shines. I think the GMC does well, but they're both miles ahead of the Ford. But we should start with what's really good. Let's start with the Ram. Yeah. I mean the Ram has, for several years now, done absolutely outstanding interiors throughout the entire range of their pickups. But the new Tungsten, which is their new, top of the line super trim is fantastic. I mean, it feels like a legitimate luxury vehicle inside. And they have for a while now, but this just takes to an even higher level than before. Seat controls on the door, man. That's a Mercedes thing. Yeah. It's very luxury. I mean, kidding, but it's fantastic, it's genuine materials. Any luxury buyer could sit in this car and not feel out of place. Yeah, at over $90,000, it's the most expensive in our test. From an interior standpoint, it feels worth every penny which is crazy to say. That's not a thing I say about luxury brands all the time. This is the cushiest, comfiest interior from pretty much every standpoint I can think of. Every surface feels good, feels high quality. They pioneered the leather wrapped grab handles to get in. And we're seeing that in other brands now. But any surface that should be leather, leather. And you know, yes, we're talking about interior quality right now, but the combined experience of, you know, cabin isolation and the richness of the interior, you're driving it, it feels like a luxury car, it's quiet like a luxury car. It is absolutely sealing the deal as a luxury truck. Yeah. And it's not falling off when you get into the backseat either. I mean, the backseat area is just as nice as the front seat area, which is not something you often see in even luxury vehicles. They'll start to cheapen things out as they get to the back seat, but not this thing. It's a limousine back there. It's got the most room, it's got tons of leg room as well. I can actually put my feet underneath the front seats when the front seats are all the way down, which is something you actually can't do in the Ford. At least, I can't do in the Ford. The latest execution of Ram's amazing quality is there. I mean, they're still nailing it. They were leading the luxury race and they've surpassed themselves. And GMC, meanwhile, is starting to catch up. Even though Ram has hit a new gear, the GMC is very, very close. Very close. This is the nicest Sierra Denali that they've ever made and it shows. The problem is, just every now and then, you'll find something that's a little substandard. Like the chrome trim on the dash feels cheap. You tap it, it sounds cheap. There's still some hard plastic pieces in there that might have a leather wrapping on them, but you still touch it and go tap, tap, tap and it still feels a little bit cheap. There's piece of wood trim around the glove box where one piece, it's supposed to be continuous, but one piece is just a little higher than the other. It's like, oh, there's your downgrade. Like you're not sealing it. I will give them credit for some of the material quality in there though and some of design as well. The baseball mitt stitching in the seats, the actual quality of the leather on the seats as well, it all feels fantastic. It even smells really good in there as well, yeah. Yeah, the topographical details on the dashboard, in the wood and then again on the seat backs in the leather, it's a really nice touch, feels really premium, feels very good to the touch, but there's just a few misses in there that it can't quite get to the Ram's level. The Ford, meanwhile, I'm not sure it feels like a luxury truck inside. No. You step in the Ford and it's just kind of like- Yeah, platinum trim level, platinum plated maybe, but certainly not platinum all the way through. It feels like a work truck that's been kind of glossed over a little bit with some nicer materials, but not even really that much. This is the work truck that's been fancied up a little bit. It's the cowboy that's put on his nicest duds, except that his nicest duds are Carhartts, and not Cartier. So, I mean, it feels just a little bit cheaper and just certainly not worth the price tag when you consider what you could be getting in the other two brands. Yeah, if you're only looking at price and interior quality, luxury vehicle, luxury vehicle, premium... Nah, not nice. But you're not looking at a premium price, you're looking at another luxury price. Yeah. Now the Ford may not have the nicest interior here, but one area where it really stood out was how well you could see out of it. Visibility is outstanding in the Ford, I think. I would absolutely agree. And part of it is the cutout shape of the windows in the doors. Ford's been doing this for a while now where they have this notch in the door sills that allows them to actually place the mirrors a little bit lower as well, but really dramatically improves outward visibility. Yeah, it's really good. And I think that just goes back to the theme of the F-150 where it's like, its differences are meaningful. Like the purpose of its individual features are very, very targeted toward using it. Like it's a very work oriented- You know, if you have to spend a lot of time in this truck, they do make the differences, where it matters, count. But if you thought if you'd spending that much time in the truck, they'd make it more comfortable. Yeah, the seats were- Atrocious. Front and rear, for me, the least comfortable. Yeah. It's been a while since I've been in any sort of Ford product where I've felt truly like I'm sitting in a comfortable seat and not on top of one that just is, it's just not good. I just really don't understand. Is Ford not employing actual humans to test the comfort of these seats because there's a lump in the middle of your back that is not adjustable away at all. And for all the adjustments that these very expensive seats have, there wasn't a comfortable position in any of it that made a difference. Whereas, in the Ram, however, it's not only the nicest one, but it's also exceptionally comfortable and adjustable. Yes. Yeah, very plush. And the only one in our test with reclining rear seats, so you can get even more comfortable if you want. It's just front and rear. Again, the quality doesn't dip, the comfort doesn't dip. Felt the best. To be a little bit bougie, I also thought it had the best massaging seats of the three which isn't something I thought I'd be talking about with pickup trucks, but here we are. The Ford's, meanwhile, you can hear the air inflating and deflating. It's unpleasant to hear. It doesn't feel as nice. GMC is okay. Yeah, the Ram is, both, comfortable, but you also can see out of it very well as well and the visibility in the Ram is good, but for very different reasons, it's the styling of the Ram that really helps you see out of it. It's got a low sloping hood. You're sitting up a little bit higher too, I think, in the Ram than you are in the other ones. Even with the seat all the way lowered, you have a great expansive view in pretty much every direction. That's not something you get in the GMC. Yeah, the air suspension, when it's in its normal ride height, you are sitting higher than the others. And yeah, you know, you're looking out the hood and it curves in. In the other trucks, there's more hood blocking your view forward, but in the Ram, it's short and it's curved in considerably which leaves a lot of open room on the sides. I feel like the front windscreen design hampers a little 'cause it's a little bit more raked than in the Ford. The Ford's upright windscreen helps you with that outward visibility. But there's an elephant in the room. (Joe and Aaron laughing) We do not like seeing out of the GMC, it is not good. So what's the biggest problem to you, Joe? It really the tall hood and squared off fenders. You know, it's just this gigantic block that juts straight out and you're just not getting the visibility in the corners like the others. You know, it's a short windscreen, it's very difficult to see out of. Yeah, GMC styling has been trending in this direction for a while now and just gets bigger and bigger and bigger. And if you pop the hood on the GMC, you'll realize that the engine is a good four, five inches below where you'd thought it would be to have such a tall hood. I mean, everything is very low in this vehicle, low in the chassis. The hood is just that tall because they want it there for the styling, for the big, blocky bush styling, but it's starting to get ridiculous because it's starting to hamper what you can actually see in front of the pickup. Yeah, it's like driving, you know, heavy duty truck. Yeah. Very close. It's really close to the HDs and probably my least favorite thing about the GMC. Oh yeah. The rear windscreen in the GMC is also just tiny, comparatively speaking. It's really hard to see out of when you're trying to use the rear view mirror backing up the car- backing up the truck, and you do have to rely on those digital solutions. And I will give GMC and Ram credit, they offer camera mirror systems that you can turn on if your view is obstructed or if you just want a better view in the rear view mirror. Yeah, the other screens though on this are really helpful. And you absolutely have to use the surround view camera system to park the truck because you just can't see out of it naturally. Now another aspect of the luxury experience is the technology that each of these trucks offers. This is a very broad category. We're gonna be talking about a lot of things. But let's start with the displays. The Ram is the only one that offers a vertically oriented display. The GMC and the Ford have horizontal ones. Do we like the Rams display? Okay. It's a luxury car in a lot of ways. And unfortunately, it's also a luxury car in this way because it's got digital screen controls instead of physical controls. Now it's not as over the top as something like a Mercedes system, but still, they are putting digital controls in the screen which there is no replacement for physical controls. And you know, kudos to GMC for not doing that. I mean, you've got a new system in GMC. It's a Google based operating system. And a very wide display, but they've still got toggles, they've still got hard controls for buttons. I think that's important, especially when you're trying to do something quickly and not having to try multiple taps on a touch screen in order to do it. I don't want more than one step to turn on my heated seats. Yeah, yeah. And in the Ram, that's not a possibility. Yeah. Yeah. And the Ford, meanwhile, I think, is probably the oldest feeling of the bunch, but I think it is the most informative and works the best. It's just straightforward. I preferred the GMC a little bit. I think Joe, you preferred the Ford in terms of screen tech. I think we can all agree there's one area the Ram's screen does really well and that's displaying navigation. That's good. It's a big, portrait oriented screen. You get a lot of screen real estate for the nav. But there are consequences to that. Let's talk about them a little. Yeah. So, I really like CarPlay in the Ram, and when you're using navigation. Unfortunately though, the buttons, the tiles for CarPlay get this big. They're impossible to hit. And that's a bummer. It's also cameras. I mean, you've got a lot of cameras in all of these trucks. When you put it in reverse, you get a much smaller camera area than you will in either of these other two trucks that have a horizontal screen. And that becomes a problem, especially if you're trying to hook up a trailer or you're trying to see around the truck. Having that vertical touchscreen, I think has become more problematic than cool. Hopefully, we see that actually change. When we look at what happened with GMC, GMC's got a brand new interior, brand new system. It's a Google based operating system that now incorporates a lot of the vehicle controls. Voice controls, like changing channels or adjusting temperature. All of that happens within the Google operating system now. You need good data connection in order for a lot of that kind of stuff to work. And eventually, you're also gonna need subscriptions in order to make sure all of those functions work beyond maybe the second or third owner of the vehicle. But it still takes a little bit extra time for you to make your request for it to go out to the cloud and for it to come back. The Ford's system where everything is happening right there in the vehicle, lightning quick. I mean, you ask it to do something, it does it immediately and without complaint or problem. There's still some areas with these Google operating systems where you can't actually ask it to choose specific satellite radio stations 'cause it doesn't know what you're saying for some reason. I mean, I could choose CNN just fine, I can't choose, you know, FirstWave. And I don't understand why that's a thing. But I think while we're on the subject of screens and things like that, I think something that's tied to those are the sound systems. And I've heard you guys talking about the stereos in these trucks, so I want to get into that. Joe, what's your favorite stereo here? Yeah. Okay. I like the Ram. It is so loud. It is way too powerful for that truck. You know, there's a 12-inch subwoofer in that thing from the factory and something like over a thousand watts and 20 something speakers. Now, granted, power and number of speakers do not mean quality, clarity. Right? That thing is so powerful, it rattles interior panels- And exterior panel. At the actual launch drive for the Ram- I have a special playlist that I use to test audio systems. I kicked that thing all the way up and I had somebody outside the truck actually knock on the window and say, "Can you do that again? I wanna record it because the bed is vibrating as I was walking past it." So it's super powerful, but again, it is also very clear. I mean, it's an excellent- It's a Klipsch branded system, which is not something you see every day. But it sounds fantastic. You're not gonna miss the Hemi V8 rumble because you're not gonna hear anything over the fact that this sound system blow you outta the truck. Yeah, for sure. And then, while we're on the topic of tech that all of these have, let's go in a different direction. Hands-free driving systems. All three- And Ram, I feel, has been a little bit lax in publicizing this feature. But all three have hands-free driving. We got to test them. Where do we land on that? I think for me, I lean towards SuperCruise as my favorite of the bunch, but how about you guys? No, I would definitely agree with that. I mean Super Cruise has proven itself to be, I think, pretty much the industry standard right now. In terms of hands-free- We should also say what these are for people who aren't necessarily familiar. These are hands-free, semi-autonomous cruise control systems, so you can set your cruise control on a highway or any specific mapped road. Super Cruise has now expanded to a lot more mapped roads than the other two systems. Push a button, and if everything lights up properly, you could take your hands off the wheel. And in some of these systems, it'll actually change lanes for you as well. GM Super Cruise, I think, has been out the longest and it definitely works the best in just about any situation I've ever tried it. It's never left me feeling nervous about what it's going to do or freaked out about a specific unusual motion. The Ford BlueCruise works pretty well and it doesn't have the same level of features, I think, as the GM vehicles do. The Ram one, actually is kind of surprising, because they haven't done a whole lot of advertising about this. They haven't even really branded it anything cool. You've got Super Cruise for GM, BlueCruise for Ford. I'm gonna just call it Ram Cruise. Let's call it Ram Cruise. The thing we did notice, I think, in the Ram with its hands-free driving system is it was, I don't wanna say abrupt, but it was maybe the most aggressive with lane changes. Would you agree with that? No, absolutely. I mean, when you wanna change lanes in the Super Cruise or BlueCruise vehicles, well first of all, Super Cruise will do it for you. It does. I like that. And if you're not prepared for it, you're like, "Ah, what you're doing?" But then you remember, oh yeah, it actually does though this without a problem. It's the only one. Yeah. BlueCruise, you have to use a signal and then it takes a second, it reads everything and then it'll move over. The Ram is prepared for you to hit the turn signal. It knows exactly what's happening. It will change lanes as soon as you've turned that signal if it can. Yeah, I'm getting increasingly comfortable with hands-free system, and a lot of that comes from the confidence of Super cruise 'cause it's just, it works really, really well. And it's becoming one of those features that I would really appreciate on longer drives. 'Cause so much of the fatigue that you get from long highway drives is just the grip on the steering wheel. Now granted, you're still paying attention, you know, monitoring what's happening, looking at mirrors, but I have found it a very useful feature to reduce fatigue. Another great feature in all these trucks is the amount of towing information you get while you're hooked up to a trailer. So, which one's our favorite? I'm leaning Ford, but how about you guys? Oh yeah, absolutely the Ford. It gives you so much information. You know, I couldn't tell if it was just what I wanted to see because I'm evaluating these vehicles, but the Ford gives you the gear that you're in and it gives you a lot of information in the head up display, which is so cool. The instrument panel and the head up display changes based on whether you're in tow mode. And if you're in tow/haul mode, you're getting different information. You're getting, you know, trailer gain and the gear. Everything that I wanted to monitor with the vehicle, I had it right in front of me with the Ford. Yeah. I will say the problem I ran into with all of the head up displays is that we were driving them on sunny days and I wear polarized sunglasses and they all kind of wash out, so that's something to keep in mind. It's a bummer. On the other end of the spectrum, the Ram in its towing tech had a inconvenient mix of physical and digital controls. You have physical trailer brake controls, but the game was in the lower portion of the touch screen and then the information about it was on the central display. It was all just very confusing and inconvenient. Not my favorite application. So this category was actually the Ram's lowest score in any measured category in this entire comparison. Not great. And there's another reason why just beyond design choices. Yeah. "Guts. Glitchy. Ram." to paraphrase their latest marketing slogan. The more you complicate these things, the more luxury and technology interior features you have, the easier it is to start having things go wrong. And we actually had a number of things go wrong in the Ram's interior, and they were all related to its electronics. Things like the window regulator on the driver's side window had pinch sensor issue where it would roll up and roll back down again. The Apple CarPlay feature in the Ram froze on every one us. None of us had successful CarPlay operation. And that different cables, different phones, but it was perfect in the other trucks. Yeah. The trailer reverse control as well. It required some setup, yes, but then when you actually went to use, you pushed the trailer steering on button and it wouldn't actually do anything. Nothing happened. It was grayed out and I had to basically reset the truck in order to make it work again. Yeah, the glitches are a little bit alarming. Maybe wait until they have a over-the-air software update that's hopefully coming. And that's why we scored the GMC the highest. Yeah. Because it did work well. All of it worked well. Easy to use. Connections were really quick and easy and the displays were big and bright and everything worked as it should. GMC, agreed. Worked the best consistently. My favorite in this category. But it's time to get back outside the trucks and remember that these are pickup trucks and let's talk about the cargo beds. So, the cargo bed. The reason pickup trucks exist, if we're being honest, is to tow and haul things and you need a bed for that. I think we're all in agreement that the GMC takes the cake. It got the highest score in our test in terms of cargo bed storage. So let's talk about that a little. What does the GMC do well? Well the tailgate, first of all, I think is interesting. It's the MultiPro tailgate which you've seen on both, the GMCs and the Chevys now offer this as well. And it's this multi-function, multi-position tailgate that seems kind of gimmicky at first, but then when you actually start using it, you realize, "Oh, you know what? It is actually useful." It's a work surface, it's a bed extender, it's a number of different things to step up into it. And it's even got a optional Bluetooth Kicker speaker that you can use for tailgate parties, which does actually sound relatively decent. It enables you to do things with the GMC bed that you really can't do with the other two. Now the other two do have optional specialty tailgates, but they're not quite as useful, I think, as the GMC's is. But the GMC's bed as well, it's carbon fiber, which is kind of unusual, and supposed to be indestructible. Yeah, it's also the largest that we measured, so you do have the most space in the bed too. And I also thought that access to the bed was, without a doubt, the best of the bunch. Yeah. Let's dig into that more. With the MultiPro tailgate, you do get that access step, without the Ford's swinging door tailgate, you can get the Ford bed step that I think we like a little bit better than the MultiPro step, but the GMC has more than just a step in the tailgate. With the GMC, you also have cutouts on each side of the rear bumper and handles right there in the bed to help you up without having to even put down the tailgate. And when you get these power running boards, they have a neat little feature where you can kick a button and it slides back. And then you have access at the bed by the cabin instead of having to climb all the way into the bed and walk forward. Really so many different options, I think, beats even the Ford's bed step even if the Ford's bed step is a little better. I do like the bed step just because of how easy it is to deploy and retract. I always felt like I fumbled with the GMC's multi-position tailgate and putting everything as like I'm gonna lose a finger. Be careful, you have a hitch ball as well. The whole thing unfolds, it'll whack the hitch ball and even nice dent in your tailgate. Oh yeah, for sure. So there is some caution you do have to use with it. Yeah. And then we have the Ram's bed access, which is- We can be very short on this. It's not good. Yeah, it's not that great. The single retractable step that you have on the driver's side, it's pretty flimsy, and if you put the pressure on the wrong area, it'll fold back up while you're using it, which is, you know, not great. Also, you know, there's no bed step, there's no cutouts. You have RamBox on the side, the lockable containers, but if you're not using that, that's just more distance you have to stretch over to get into the bed. Yeah. I will say on the RamBox around, we should touch on this a little bit more because it can be, I think, a very convenient storage solution. You don't have to access the bed to get into things. It's got drains. You can use it as a cooler for tailgating. That's sort of the- Lockable. It's got a lock as well, so it's functionally kind of like a trunk. But there's a consequence to the RamBox, and that is, Joe? Yeah, it is tiny. It's like mid-size truck bed tiny. It just really impacts the usable space in the bed. Now there are no obstructions from wheel arches like you do in the others. It's flat, it's rectangular, but there's just so much less space. I don't care for the RamBoxes. I would rather have the big open space and then use that through dividers and a cargo cover or tonneau cover to make the space in the bed more usable. That's just me. I know. We've been testing RamBoxes for a lot of time. They're still out there, people do like them, but for how I would want to use it, I don't need the RamBox. Yeah, it's just something you're gonna have to consider if you're looking at the Ram. Do you want lockable storage? Do you want a wider cargo bed floor? But it's a nice option to have. It is. Speaking of nice options to have, we've left out the Ford a little bit, and that's been intentional, because I think the Ford has the best bed feature of any of these trucks, and that is Pro Power Onboard. Yeah, Pro Power Onboard is something that can sell you on the F-150 versus any other truck no matter any other characteristic we're talking about. If you go camping and you have an RV trailer that needs air conditioning, if you have a welder, there is so much power in the back of that truck through its various outlets with the PowerBoost hybrid and the 7.2 kilowatt Pro Power Onboard. If you frequently need power and don't want to use a portable generator, this truck has it. I mean it is amazing for boondock camping. I've done this myself. I actually towed an Airstream behind our own long-term F-150 a couple of years ago with those 7.2 kilowatt Pro Power Onboard and it powered the trailer's air conditioners all night long and used up just a little under an eighth of a tank of gas which was definitely something I'd be willing to pay for given the fact that it was a hundred degrees and humid in the middle of Tennessee. But that is just such a game changer for somebody who wants to use that kind of a system for going just completely off the grid somewhere for a while. If you use it too much, yeah, you'll use up all your gas, but it's really pretty efficient at doing that. And it's thanks to that large hybrid battery that the power boost system comes with that you're unable to do that kind of thing. Yeah, you've got four 20-amp household outlets, and then you've got a 240 volt 14-30 30-amp connector. That is so powerful. That is just so much juice. Yeah, we've plugged in an EV. We charged an EV. Yeah, it was a Mustang Mach-E we plugged into our long-term F-150. Like Aaron said, it's the one feature that really, I think, puts everything else into secondary consideration. If you need that, Ford. You can get bed power in the other trucks here, but it's nothing to that level right now. It really is such a game changer. That wraps up the categories we want to discuss in detail, but if you've been watching this long, you're probably wondering which truck came in first and that's the 2025 Ram 1500. So let's get into why. Guys, it had nine outright category wins and only two losses in our scoring. That's pretty substantial. Yeah, and the subjective scoring. A lot of it for me boils down to that interior. It is just beautifully done. And that's why you're spending all of your time in these trucks. You know, you have to be comfortable, it has to be nice to use, it has to be a really quality, luxurious experience, especially at this price point, and I think the Ram just knocks it outta the park. Yeah, you're at 90,000 as tested with this one. It's not much more than the others. 87,000, 87,000. Yes, you're paying more, it costs more, but I think you are getting your money's worth with that extra $3,000 as tested. Absolutely. There's a value component that I don't really feel like we always talk about at this level of price, but for the money, it is exactly what it should be. It is a luxury vehicle that is $90,000. Other areas that the Ram excelled in were powertrain, braking, driving categories, at least when we weren't towing. Yeah, the SST engine is just dynamite. It is powerful. As you said, it is luxury car smooth. Again, for that price point, you don't question why is this expensive? It feels fantastic. And the engine really just reinforces that. You've got tons of power, you've got a lot of torque, and it's readily available. It wants to dance. So, these luxury trucks, they might not be someone's primary work truck, and because of that, there's so much to like in the Ram. I mean, it's the most pleasant to drive without a trailer without a doubt, and the ride quality is just so smooth. It's also worth mentioning some of the scores that it just won outright without our opinion. It was the quickest in acceleration, we gave it our value win, and it has the best driver assist features, although that was a shared category win. But there weren't always good scores for the Ram. It's not a perfect truck by any means. I think the biggest loss we've hit on it already was vehicle user interface. It's just not up to snuff compared to these others, and it didn't work as well. I think it's the vertical screen in particular is become problematic. We thought it was cool when it was introduced. It was novel, not one had seen anything like it. But after using it for a while and seeing the disadvantages of having that vertical screen, which is mostly just about the backup cameras and the surround cameras, you don't get the same level of detail and available usefulness out of this vertical screen as you do with the new horizontal screens that we've seen in its competitors. So yeah, we did mark it down for that. And again, it was glitchy. Yeah. Yeah, the glitches, I think, really harmed it here. Also worth noting, all that fun, we mentioned the penalty to fuel economy. Consistently the worst in our fuel economy testing, not by a whole lot, but consistently the worst. Now with nine subjective category wins and three objective category wins, many of them directly or indirectly related to this new powertrain, the Ram is our winner. And while the Hemi may be dead, it's clear that the Hemi may have been holding the Ram back a bit in previous versions of this comparison. Now, all three of these trucks do something different very well. The Ford is the most useful of the three trucks in this test, the GMC is the most traditional, and the Ram is easily the most luxurious. Now these are our thoughts, but to figure out what matters most to you, you can find the full results at https://www.cars.com/news.