Some would say I'm a simple-sort of guy; I like cheese on my burgers, my bacon crispy and my women curvy (I had a hard time thinking of a third thing). My ride for work is an F-450 which uses a column shifter. It's there, it works and I never have to think about it. Well last week the truck blew a hose and went-down for repairs. In it's place the company I work for graciously rented me a nearly brand-new half-ton Ram P/U truck.
I've had it for about a week now and have put nearly 1,000 miles on it. It's a nice truck. I'm not generally a fan of Chrysler products and can't ever see myself buying one of these trucks for myself but it does have some neat features (the UConnect stereo is awesome and works flawlessly with my I-Phone) and the 5.7L Hemi engine is incredible! Although the truck is six months old, has 12K miles on it and already has a small oil leak. However one feature which I'm not sold on is having to use a rotary knob on the dash to change gears.
At first I tried to keep an open mind. This could be the future. Many luxury cars use rotary shift knobs. It's nice that without a gear shift my netbook and tablet both fit easily into the center console but after a week of mostly city driving where I've frequently needed to jump between drive and reverse quickly, I'm no longer a fan.
Maybe in a car it works but in a truck it just feels wrong. And mounting the gear selector knob adjacent to the fan control knob had to be someone's idea of a sick joke. Having it move it's self from N to P when I shut the engine off in neutral (with the brake set) bothered me too.
So has anyone else driven anything else with a shift knob? Did you eventually get used to it? I'm going to be jumping back into my F-450 in the next day or so then the Ram will be a memory (and a mostly happy one at that) I just hope this isn't a trend which catches on with the other truck makers.
Kevin
I've had it for about a week now and have put nearly 1,000 miles on it. It's a nice truck. I'm not generally a fan of Chrysler products and can't ever see myself buying one of these trucks for myself but it does have some neat features (the UConnect stereo is awesome and works flawlessly with my I-Phone) and the 5.7L Hemi engine is incredible! Although the truck is six months old, has 12K miles on it and already has a small oil leak. However one feature which I'm not sold on is having to use a rotary knob on the dash to change gears.
At first I tried to keep an open mind. This could be the future. Many luxury cars use rotary shift knobs. It's nice that without a gear shift my netbook and tablet both fit easily into the center console but after a week of mostly city driving where I've frequently needed to jump between drive and reverse quickly, I'm no longer a fan.
Maybe in a car it works but in a truck it just feels wrong. And mounting the gear selector knob adjacent to the fan control knob had to be someone's idea of a sick joke. Having it move it's self from N to P when I shut the engine off in neutral (with the brake set) bothered me too.
So has anyone else driven anything else with a shift knob? Did you eventually get used to it? I'm going to be jumping back into my F-450 in the next day or so then the Ram will be a memory (and a mostly happy one at that) I just hope this isn't a trend which catches on with the other truck makers.
Kevin
