Tested: 2004 Dodge Ram SRT-10 Quad Cab

From the January 2005 issue of Car and Driver.

What do Dodge Viper owners most frequently ask the company for? More refinement? A hardtop street model? An automatic transmission? Not even close.

Dodge brass say the most frequent request is for a Viper-engined truck, something capable of towing the customers’ Vipers. Although the regular-cab Ram SRT-10 truck wasn’t up to the task of towing the 3400-pound Viper-towing wasn’t sanctioned due to the lowered ride height and Dodge’s worries about clutch abuse-this SRT-10 Quad Cab can tow up to 7500 pounds and has the most utility of any Viper-powered vehicle yet.

When the folks at Dodge’s Street and Racing Technology (SRT) set out to build this more practical version of the Ram SRT-10, they took a half-step back from the goal of ultimate performance and instead focused on adding versatility while maintaining its ferocious performance. To that end, the Quad Cab has four real doors, seats a family-friendly six, and comes only with an anyone-can-drive-it automatic.

The 8.3-liter V-10 Viper engine that pumps out 500 horsepower and 525 pound-feet of torque ensures that performance won’t be compromised. However, the Quad Cab, unlike the regular cab, uses Dodge’s 48RE four-speed and is automatic only. This tranny usually sees duty on the business end of the Cummins diesel engine in 2500- or 3500-series Ram trucks. Here it was tweaked to handle the V-10’s power delivery. But it’s still not a perfect match, as its excessively harsh shifts cause the SRT-10 to buck back and forth like a mechanical bull.

All this powertrain excess catches up with you at the gas pump. We recorded 11 mpg over 1600 miles, and we didn’t even tow anything. (We may have done a couple of smoky burnouts, possibly. We’re human.)

To accommodate the four-door configuration, the cargo box didn’t shrink, so the wheelbase had to be stretched-in this case 20.0 inches to 140.5-and the overall length similarly increased nearly 25 inches to 227.7.

Despite weighing in at 5618 pounds (479 more than the regular-cab SRT-10) and employing a power-robbing automatic, this truck’s performance still qualifies as exceptional. The Quad Cab’s 5.6-second 0-to-60 time was 0.7 second slower than the regular cab’s, and the quarter-mile was 0.6 second off at 14.2 seconds. The Quad Cab squealed its tires to a 0.83-g skidpad rating, 0.03 g less than its two-door sibling, and registered a lofty 147 mph top speed, just 6 mph slower.

Both SRT-10 trucks have the same 15.0-inch front rotors, but for 2005, they each get slightly smaller 13.8-inch rear discs and a retuned three-channel anti-lock braking system. Our Quad Cab’s 180-foot stop from 70 mph was four feet shorter than that of its lighter regular-cab brother with the old, larger brakes, which points to more efficient ABS activity.

Dodge invited us out to its proving ground in Chelsea, Michigan, to sample the SRT-10 Quad Cab in an autocross setting. After a few tire-spinning starts and a couple attempts to hang out the tail around an entire sweeping left-hander, we were left giggling like grade-school dorks who’d just successfully slipped a whoopee cushion on the teacher’s chair without his noticing.

Try as it might, however, this is still a truck, and although we appreciate the massive power, direct steering, sticky rubber, tough-guy looks, and firm seats, there are a couple noticeable areas that hold back its performance. This truck understeers, big time. The extra 20 inches in wheelbase only make it worse than the regular-cab SRT-10, and after thorough experimentation with absurd steering inputs, we concluded that the only oversteer possible is the power variety, and even that is tricky to dish out with the automatic as your mediator.

Also, the brakes suffer from a condition known as knock-back. This occurs under hard cornering when a wheel (and pertinent brake rotor) moves slightly relative to the location of the brake caliper, causing the brake pad to be pushed back and giving the driver that sinking feeling when he goes for the brakes and- whoa!-the pedal goes nearly to the floor before the pads and rotors are reunited.

Dodge hopes some Viper owners, who presumably have put down 85K for their superfast roadsters, will be willing to shell out another $50,850 ($5000 more than the regular-cab SRT-10) for an SRT-10 Quad Cab. In a year, we’ll see if there were enough of them out there to make this powerful truck a success.

Source: Reviews - aranddriver.com