Please lengthen

 

"RTL" trim level? What happened to LX and EX????

So they take Acura model names and turn them into Honda trim level designations. Brilliant. I hope Honda has to recall all these "trucks" for serious, unfixable problems caused by complete LAMENESS.

Why buy a real Toyota, Ford, or GMC pickup for $33K when you can buy some nancy-pants HONDA?!

 

i am a honda's fan but i think that's the overpriced, wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyy overpriced for a truck from honda. wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy overpriced. did i mention that it's overpriced?

 

This is not even a truck. It's a chopped up Honda Odyssey. It's a pansy truck if anything. wont be long when you'll hear stories of trannies failing on these because it strained to carry a load of groceries in the cargo area.

 

I second and third this motion...

 

the truck would proably do much better if it was priced competively with the tacoma double cab

 

Car and Driver did a story on it in the March 2005 issue but that issue apparantly isn't on its website yet.
This is actually a VERY significant product in the marketplace, though I agree it may be a little overpriced. It brings a number of firsts.

......First Honda open-bed vehicle.
......First unibody true pickup. (Yes, you had the Subaru Baja but that is not really a pickup...just a modified last-generation Legacy / Outback)
......First pickup with a separate compartment under the bed.
......First pickup with a dual-action tailgate.....opens either up and down or sideways.

IMO, this is a good candidate for North American Truck of the Year.

 

Exactly, while I personally am not a fan of trucks and probably would not buy one, those points you mentioned do appeal to me since they address many reasons why I don't like trucks to begin with. Unibody is good, and I love that storage compartment under the bed. Style wise I'm not a big fan but I see a lot worse (My personaly taste) on the road today so it is not that bad. I guess for a first try it may not be a big success story for Honda (Maybe it will, I don't know), but I like the direction and engineering that they are coming up with. Maybe the next generation will be the real success story. Price wise it is a fair bit expensive, but it seems like this is starting to become a familiar note with all the larger Japanese companies now days. Maybe everyoe is trying to push the treshold and see what the US market will bare.

 

A truck that drives like a car - sign me up. I like it.

 

What I have read up on it suggests that Honda has done a lot of testing...they didn't just throw a bunch of minivan and SUV parts together. They have purposely beefed up the suspension and driveline to carry loads. Granted, it's still no F-series Super-Duty , but Honda guarantees a 5000-lb. towing capacity....that's a lot more than a few groceries.

 

UNIBODIES S-U-C-K. end of story, first time someone hits you on the corner of the car...totalled. i will NEVER buy a truck with a unibdy...ever. it will ride like azz, it will not handle the way a truck is supposed to handle. which brings be to my next point.


THE ONLY THING THAT MAKES THIS A TRUCK is the fact that it has a bed. first off, it cant be used for off-roading. you cant offroad in a unibody. it will tweak the frame at the first time you cross a ditch thast more than 2 feet deep at an angle. i have done this many, many times in the F-150, always comes out straight. you wont be able to pull anything large with it, probably nothing more than a couple of lawn tractors. if you make it drive like a car, people will driove it like a car, weaving in and out of traffic, doing stupid stuff, until they overcompensate and make an *** out of themselves by smearing them and maybe someone else with em against a concrete freeway divider. if id drives like a truck, you dont forget that your driving a big vehicle that will do damage. there is also incentive there for grandma to buy it...thats just great. it drives like a car, so not only do we have incompotent ***** who cant pilot their way out of a wal mart parking lot with a cavalier, but now we have 80 year olds driving 5 and 6,000 lb vehicles.

tell em these things arent dangerous. i dont even like new SUV's for this reason, or minvans for that matter, they drive too much like cars, so people drive them just like they do cars, taking NO extra care when the vehicleis 2, 3 or even 5 times larger than your average family sedan.


but perhaps my worst WORST fear. ricers and tasteless modders will gt ahold of this honda. next will be the neons and the spinners. then when they do wreck them, they will figure out a way to swap the powertrains into 1992 civics.

rant over, i dont support them. besides i hate honda , toyota/lexus forever.

 

LOL!

You aren't from Texas are you?

 

Couple of things I'd like to point out. First, there is some truth to your statement that unibody vehicles can more easily and more extensively get frame damage on impact than ladder-frame vehicles, and sometimes require frame-rail machines to repair, but you are exaggerating it somewhat. Today's unibodies and space-frame vehicles are designed and tested on super-computers using high-strength alloy metals and other materials and are given extensive crash tests before they are ever put into production. We are also talking about a multi-ton vehicle here, not a small subcompact.
Second, as far as your comment about geezers driving trucks and SUVs being dangerous, statistics show that inexperienced teen-agers and young people roll them over at a significantly higher rate than older people.....mostly because teens often try to corner them too hard for their high centers of gravity or let them tilt too far over at an angle off-road. Older people usually flip them trying to avoid obstacles like deer. Newer SUVs are making stability systems standard, and one, the Volvo XC-90), even has a roll-stability system in addition to the more common yaw-sensor one.

 

Maybe they should have called this thing the Honda Aztec.

About the only thing this thing will be able to haul is pine straw.

And you'll be able to tow a jet ski, but not much else.

5000lbs sounds like a lot but it isn't. And that might mean 5000lbs is doable on perfectly flat roads. Oh you wanted to go up hills? Sorry, not enough power.

 

The Ridgeline may have all this HP, but it's high end horsepower that will have it struggling for the low end torque that most Honda engines lack for towing purposes. Sure it will have 255 hp, but by the time you're at the crest of a grade, it's just now hitting VTEC for the power.