I got to sit in the limited crew pictured above today at the Fort Lauderdale auto show. Unfortunately, the battery was disconnected - and when I talked someone into connecting it, turns out it was completely dead. Oh well. The show lighting was iffy so I only snapped a couple of shots of the truck.
Exterior:
The truck looked great. Honestly, I've seen so many photos of the 2019, it was hard for me to be surprised by the exterior styling. I think it IS more bland than the 4th gen styling - however, it was still unmistakably RAM and I'm psyched about getting my hands on one. I didn't think I liked the aiming LED headlights in pictures, but in person I didn't even notice. The 22" wheels looked pretty sharp. The auto side steps looked good deployed and were solid to stand on - I wish I could have seen them tucked against the truck. The panoramic sunroof was open - it was nice, but as expected only the front panel slid backwards. I liked it, but don't have a great track record of actually using sunroofs so I didn't feel like I was missing out. Tonneau cover was 1980s lame.
Interior:
Interior finishes were VERY nice. Much better than my 2011 sport. I am hopeful that the leather on the Laramie Sport is comparable, because on the limited it was very soft and comfortable. The center console was complex but looked functional. I was worried about bins and latches etc but the console seemed well thought out and the tray slid back and forth with latching stops. The wireless charging pad is pretty low in the console, which I'm a bit worried about for quick glances at the phone, but will see how that goes in practice. Similarly, you hardly noticed the CD slot, which is good, on a $50k truck I'm still confused why it has a CD slot. (although I would have taken a DVD player!) Dash layout looked good, without power it was hard to get too excited about it, but the touchscreen hard buttons seemed well placed. Sitting in the driver's seat everything felt very natural coming from my 2011, aside from the huge touchscreen felt like a solid evolution of design.
I'm coming from a quad cab, but had a buddy with a 2011 crew. In this one one - the rear seat was HUGE on the crew, and the reclining and folding mechanisms were both very slick. I'm 5'11 and was very comfortable in the back seat. I had been confused about the "underseat storage" option and after seeing it in person it is a bit cheesy. But it gives you a fair bit of underseat storage for things like tools, jumper cables, a towel etc - if you don't need that you can then fold the "box" back to gain an extra 4" of flat-load space. It felt like they could have done a better job on this though. Only 4-5" deep but extended most of the width of the cab. Mixed feelings on that but definitely better than nothing. My current truck doesn't have the in-floor boxes so maybe those are more useful overall. The flat-load space was also pretty crazy, utility-wise there's a ton of room in the crew cab interior.
Under the hood:
Everything looked pretty similar to my 2011, although this model DID have the eTorque system, there was no one that could talk to it.
