Hi,
Well, I also own a Grand Cherokee ('03 Overland) with 200,000 trouble-free miles on it (my previous ZJ Jeep has about 310k on it and still runs great!!), and recently bought a 2012 1500 with 150k Mi on the clock. The Jeep is my wife's. Miles don't bother me so long as the vehicle in question seems to have been well cared for (of course yer always assuming risk though) and personally I've never really been burned on a high-mile rig. Sure some small things come up from time to time, but nothing major. Originally I was looking for a lightly used newer GMC/Chev 4x4 Reg cab Short box because that's what I was coming from. It's enough truck for what I do. But that configuration is almost impossible to find these days because the trend is extended cab trucks. And when you DO find one they're usually either plain jane, 2wd, over-priced, or sold right away. I went to a larger used car dealer we have ...which has tons of pretty new trucks of all makes, because it was a good place to drive a lot of different trucks in a short time and they're not really high pressure either. I spent a solid afternoon looking over, nit-picking and test driving trucks of various makes. The sales guy would just give me the key and let me do whatever. Nice!
What I discovered was I didn't care for how the latest gen of GM trucks were laid out, visibility over the tall, flat hood is abysmal compared to the previous generation, and several interior things didn't warm up to me. I was disappointed actually. Plus, I see a lot of fairly new GM trucks around here with rust bubbling through the box wheel wells that you wouldn't think would be rusting already. Also, didn't care for the Fords or the extended cab trucks in general, and the Colorado-type trucks were cramped and didn't offer enough cargo room for like drywall or plywood. 4-door trucks have a lot of wasted space if it's just yourself, but make sense I guess if you haul people a lot. I think 4dr trucks look awkward anyway.
Although I didn't want to drive it, there was a lowly Reg cab Ram 1500 Reg cab 8' box that came in on trade the day before sitting at the back of the dealer parking area that hadn't been 'Prepped' yet for resale or auction. I resisted but at the end of the afternoon, I decided I probably should drive it so I could say I drove all the types of trucks and could fully compare them. It was a 2012 Reg Cab Ram 1500 4x4 (ST which is a Tradesman) with the 5.7 Hemi, towing package and some other upgrades that I eventually bought. The box is 8' which is longer than I wanted, but the plusses outweighed the negatives on this one.
What sold me on the Ram were:
1) liked how the interior was laid out and seating position was better than the GM ...IMO
2) Price (I got a great deal, 10k). It's a basic tk but that's kind of what I was looking for
3) Small but meaningful design touches like rear wheel inner finder liners (to help prevent rust); Frame is super-robust; cab corners and rockers look like they'd be easy to rust-proof; very quiet ride; Even at 150k, the doors didn't have ANY looseness or play in them!; Kick butt sound system (but not all the gimmicks of a touch screen system or GPS that become old-school right away); Bench seat (buckets/console make no sense in a tk to me); Bed is a touch wider at the wheel wells than my previous truck; Appears easy to service; Painted aluminum wheels (chromed wheels flake apart pretty quick around here due to the salt!) ...Just a whole bunch of small things that seemed well thought out.
4) At 150k Mi, it drove and steered as tight as some of the other vehicles I had driven that day which were in the 80k range.
5) The 5.7 Hemi truly smokes and will come in handy for occasional towing, plus with the 6 speed tranny wouldn't be as much hunting as the 8 spd,
6) Visibility over the hood was better than the others I drove (but still nowhere as good as the 88-98 GMs)
7) At 150k there isn't ONE SINGLE rattle, squeak, vibration or hum
8) It's dead-quiet in the cab while driving.
9) Stowage - The Ram regular cab has an 8" wide plastic tray behind the seat that goes across the entire back of the cab to stow things, but there's a good 12" of room between the seat and the cab ....and hooks on the back of the cab for plastic trays if you want to put small things in the trays half way up the cab (a nice touch!). So there's a lot more room back there than you'd think (lot more than my older GM). So the extra room in the Ram basically negates the need an extended cab (at least for me). It was a huge selling point, because it's enough room to put tools and whatever I'm working on at the moment.
10) Bed cover - This truck came with the Ram vinyl bed cover which I really like.
11) After 5 years of WI winters, there's surprisingly little to no surface rust on the Ram frame and none at all on the body of the Ram truck. Other GM's and some Fords I looked at that day at the dealership which were even newer had far more surface rust starting which was quite alarming to me!! A couple GMs 3 years old had quite a bit of rust around the rear frame and beneath the box (under the truck). I plan to keep this tk for several years and THAT amount of rust didn't bode well for keeping a GM tk looking great down the road.
12) Style - I liked the style of the Ram when compared to the tall nose of the GMs and their really squared-off wheel well look (to be truthful, I wasn't going to buy a Ford under any circumstance due to past experiences). The Ram overall just looks better IMO. I personally like the profile of the front end being lower ...almost like a 2wd, although I know a lot of guys here prefer a taller front end, which I can sympathize with too.
Anyway, you add it all up and, while not fancy by any means, the Ram ticked the right boxes for me. In the last month of ownership it's been great. Love it a lot. Nice thing is I paid cash for the whole thing and don't need to carry Collision which saves $400 a year right there. In the rural area I live I'm more likely to hit a deer (covered by Comprehensive).
I've re-done the front brakes/rotors and I really like how Dodge has machined a ridge 'around' the circumference of the hub that a lot of vehicles don't have, which helps ensure true rotor run-out, and dual piston calipers. Front driveshaft is super tight still, Oil change is convenient and easy access to the filter (lot better than the 4.7 Hemi Jeep). As for other maintenance, it's pretty much like normal ...like ATF +4 for the tranny (which is synthetic), and the same Chrysler lube for the rest of the driveline. No greasable joints I saw. Only thing that's different is there are 2x plugs per cylinder and they suggest changing them every 30k mi on 2013 and earlier years. Ya have to pull off the valve covers it looks like to do it, which shouldn't be that hard. The timing is via a chain, so don't have to change that. They seem to be an engine where most of the weak points have been engineered out by the middle of the 4th gen. Tranny on the 5.7 is probably going to be a 6-spd and from my reading around they seem pretty robust. I'm surprised the wire harness is only partially taped (strange). Lot of room under the hood. The upper A-Arms are stamped steel and kind of curled back at the legs of the "A" to form a round 'bar' shape, almost like a stamped A-arm. A lot of trucks use cast aluminum (and maybe Dodge does on their higher spec trucks), but I would have thought they'd at least 'weld' the seam where the stamped sections of metal on the A-arms meet but I assume they hold up fine. I bet they'd be a lot stronger if they were at least tack welded in a couple places. My truck has a 'Towing on/off' feature and also switches on the gear selector to select a gear limit (max), which is nice, or an Eco mode. There's also traction control too which is somewhat like a poor-man's locking diff you might say. I haven't used the 4x4 other than test driving to know how well it works yet, but on mine there isn't a 'full-time' like there is on a Jeep, so it might be somewhat old-school in that regard which is fine for me. But from what I read around here (and I don't know this for certain) the 4x4 is kind of always 'on'?? Maybe someone can comment on this. Getting the oil fill cap off is way easier than the Jeep 4.7 I've described!
I don't know what you're looking for in a truck, but there are Tradesman trucks out there which is a basic truck and they're fairly cheap. If you can get one cheap enough, you can buy a chrome grille and maybe you'd want to buy a new seat bottom ($400) because it'll probably need it like mine. Of course you can go up from there in terms of options and so on ...the sky's the limit. If you get a 5.7 Hemi, nobody is going to leave you in the dust I can assure you that. I agree with you though, the '99-04 Jeep Grand Cherokees were/are an amazing vehicle, but from what I've seen, these Rams seem to have a lot of longevity designed into them as well.
