From the September 2000 issue of Car and Driver.
Picture some future explorers digging up the preserved remains of a Dodge Durango R/T. They will have no problem dating the specimen to the height of an epoch when herds of behemoths with similar body-on-frame skeletons and voracious appetites roamed the continent of North America.
Like most of them, the Durango R/T has five hinged orifices, a prodigious interior cavity, and a standard full-time four-wheel- drive system. That seems to slot it into a genus of docile leviathans known for nesting around soccer fields and shopping malls. However, the Durango also has 17-inch alloy wheels and a brooding 360-cubic-inch V-8 with a menacing snarl. Perhaps the Durango R/T was a predator that used its swiftness to run down the larger creatures of its habitat.
Either conclusion would be valid. The new-for-2000 R/T version of the Dodge Durango shares enough of its vital specs with Dodge’s more family-oriented Durango SLT to remain useful as a kiddy carpooler. But it also packs enough tweaks of both the shiny and dirty variety to inch up the Durango’s otherwise modest entertainment quotient.
Amazingly, the performance angle of the proletarian sport-utility segment is still largely untapped. Remember the bumptious GMC Typhoon of 1992-93, of which just 4601 were built? It reached 60 mph in less than six seconds and needed just 14.1 seconds to cover 1320 feet driving all four wheels (C/D, March 1992). Mercedes and BMW both build high-powered, high-dollar utes, but so far nobody in Detroit has dared step forward to fill the breach.
Unfortunately, nor is Dodge. It is using a fairly restrained formula in the latest attempts to leverage the historic R/T moniker. The equation behind the Durango R/T, Dakota R/T, Neon R/T, and Intrepid R/T goes like this: base vehicle plus top trim-level package plus largest available engine plus special R/T equipment group. The latter varies from car to car and includes some sporty interior and exterior trim plus a dash of spice sprinkled on the engine and suspension.
For the Durango, this means a snortier exhaust, a reprogrammed engine-control module, fatter tires, and revalved shock absorbers. It’s hardly 1967 all over again, and the factory mods won’t even make the R/T the hottest Durango ever to grace these pages. That title belongs to the Shelby SP360 Durango (C/D, October 1998), a $54,000, 360-horsepower tuner rocket with a Kenne Bell supercharger strapped to its iron block.
For those who prefer a factory warranty and a price south of a BMW’s, the Durango at least looks good in its R/T costume. It has handsome five-spoke alloy wheels ringed by bulky P275/60SR-17 Goodyear Wrangler HP street radials and chromelike embossed “Durango 5.9 R/T” logos on the front doors. Body-color running boards are part of the package.
The interior treatment is somewhat skimpy: R/Ts feature suede door-panel bolsters and two-tone front and rear leather-faced seats. The front buckets have suede inserts bearing a small, embroidered “R/T” logo. From behind the wheel, payment makers will be hard pressed to identify their Durango R/Ts from lesser models. One more bauble on the otherwise school-bus dash, such as off-color gauges or an R/T dash plaque, would nicely rein-force the message.
Underneath the R/T’s styling lies a thin but noteworthy layer of substance. At the core is the familiar 5.9-liter Magnum V-8 puffed up in the R/T by 5 hp and 15 pound-feet of torque to 250 hp at 4200 rpm and 350 pound-feet at 3000 rpm. The power increase is due mainly to some software rewrites in the engine module with the end result being more aggressive ignition timing. It’s basically the same controller Jeep used on the ’98 Grand Cherokee 5.9 Limited (the one with the hood louvers). With this controller fitted, the Durango R/T demands premium fuel. It also comes with a freer-flowing muffler wearing a chrome tip.
The muffler plays a thumping concerto lifted directly from the Hemi gold album. Better like it, because the four-speed automatic transmission is one overdrive short of being able to quiet down the cabin on the highway. There, the 3.92:1 final drive forces the big pushrod motor to turn almost 2100 revs at 65 mph-enough so that the niblets in back are sure to whine if they’re trying to watch videos.
The R/T pounces off the line when all that torque is sluiced through the low-geared rear end, but forget hazing the spectators with tire smoke. The driveline, which doubles as the Jeep Grand Cherokee’s base Selec-Trac system with a lock-able low range, has a fixed 48 percent front and 52 percent rear torque split that keeps all the paws firmly planted on the bitumen.
The 5.9’s extra juice helped the R/T clip one full second off the 9.1-second 0-to-60 time of a Durango SLT tested with the base 5.9 engine and 3.92:1 axle ratio (C/D, January 1998). It also sheared 0.7 second off the quarter-mile, running it in 16.3 seconds at 84 mph, three more mph than the SLT’s trap speed.
The R/T handily outcircled the SLT on the skidpad, pulling 0.77 g to the SLT’s 0.69. By the way, that’s just a whisker off the hunkered-down Typhoon’s 0.79-g skidpad performance. Thank the R/T’s jumbo tires and firmer shock absorbers, which help eliminate any wild body mambo. Also give credit to the rack-and-pinion steering system new this year to four-wheel-drive Durangos. It telegraphs messages from the front tires more succinctly and helps place the Durango’s broad snout more confidently in turns.
It will also steer it confidently toward gas pumps. The EPA claims a Durango R/T averages 12 mpg in the city and 16 on the highway. Our 4926-pound test vehicle ingested a gallon of premium on average every 13 miles over 600.
A loaded Durango SLT with most of the R/T’s equipment, including the un-modified 5.9 V-8 and full-time four-wheel drive, will vacuum $32,695 out of a bank account. The extra whiffs of R/T fairy dust run an additional $1645 and don’t include the optional third row of seats ($550) or four-wheel anti-lock brakes ($495–rear-wheel ABS is standard).
History will be the judge of whether this sporty ute was the start of a new species or just an evolutionary dead end.
Counterpoint
The major ingredient of this Durango 5.9 R/T is exclusivity. Sport-utes are every-where you look these days, so you’ve got to have something to separate you from the pack. In this case, a throaty exhaust, some suede on the seats and doors, some aggressively styled R/T labels, and a few other bits are what you get. Unfortunately, the performance promise behind the R/T tag isn’t as dramatic. Yes, it’s a few ticks quicker, but driving this macho sport-ute is still less than thrilling. The ride is smooth, and the R/T has a high level of quality, but “performance” and “sport-ute” are two terms I don’t see being happy next to each other. —Brad Nevin
The Durango’s mid-size-Dakota origins keep it compact compared with other SUVs in its class—it slots in size between an Explorer and an Expedition—yet it’s endowed with 5.9 liters of full-size-Ram power. Add a 5-hp boost and 15 more pound-feet of torque, as well as the rest of the R/T goodies, and power-hungry truck lovers may forget all about the 88-cubic-foot maximum cargo capacity—especially when under the influence of the rumbling exhaust and the flared fenders. That would be a good time to fork over the extra five grand for the R/T 5.9—before you can calculate how much it will cost to keep that 25-gallon tank full. —Cora Weber
I don’t advertise this around here, but I sort of enjoy muscled trucks because I’m frequently towing or hauling something and I like the added zip. If Ford’s SVT Lightning were available as a crew cab, I’d be begging to make one a longtermer. I’m no fan of the Durango R/T sport-ute, however. It holds the road better than the SLT model and it’s quicker in all acceleration tests, but it’s still not among the truck elite in its performance. And I found the booming exhaust note cool at first but tiring after 20 minutes. The R/T package needs to offer more of a performance gain before I’d degrade the base Durango’s comfy, refined manner. —Larry Webster
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Source: Reviews - aranddriver.com
