Cheap Full-Size Truck Life Hack: Get a 2025 Ram 1500 Tradesman

Here’s a truck for the people who think a $90,000 pickup makes as much sense as $300 jeans with holes in the knees. The 2025 Ram 1500 Tradesman isn’t a status symbol. It won’t power your house during an outage or blow cool air up your crack on a swampy August afternoon. Painted Orkin Man white with black plastic bumpers and steel wheels, it’s a simple truck for doing simple work. 

As the name makes clear, the Tradesman is a tool for the men and women who keep America’s lights on, machinery humming, and lawns mowed. If you can live without the fripperies we take for granted in modern cars, it’s also one of the few ways to buy a full-size truck today without paying luxury-car money. 

That doesn’t mean it’s a cheap truck, though. At $55,690, the Tradesman 4x4 we tested is relatively affordable for the segment, but it’s not exactly a value. Any SUV you’d buy at this price point would come with heated seats, a power driver’s seat, and vanity mirrors in the sun visors—features that aren’t even available on the Tradesman. 

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It compensates for the lack of equipment with sheer size and capability. Standard seating for six and the optional 6-foot, 4-inch bed made our test truck equally suited to hauling people or stuff or both at the same time. It’ll carry up to 1,620 pounds between its bumpers or tow as much as 11,310 pounds off the back. 

The Luxury of Power 

Build a Tradesman in the same crew-cab, long-bed configuration as our test vehicle, and it will come with exactly one luxury: the standard twin-turbo 3.0-liter inline-six. This engine makes 420 hp and 469 lb-ft of torque, a 115-hp and 198-lb-ft advantage over other Tradesman versions equipped with the base Pentastar V-6. At our test track, the Ram stormed from 0 to 60 mph in 4.8 seconds, making it more than a second quicker than the swiftest 5.7-liter V-8 Ram 1500 we’ve tested and a yawning 3.3 seconds quicker than the Pentastar-powered 2025 Ram Big Horn we recently reviewed. 

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The Hurricane straight-six is the strong but silent type, only making itself heard when you stand on the throttle. The engine’s turbochargers muffle the exhaust note while acoustically laminated front side windows and front fenders stuffed with insulation tamp down wind and powertrain noise. That’s both a huge benefit and a minor tragedy. The quiet and assertive power delivery gives this work truck a remarkable sense of refinement in the city and on the highway. Backed up by an eight-speed automatic transmission that shuffles gears quickly and smoothly, the Tradesman’s powertrain wouldn’t be out of place in a $90,000 German SUV. 

On the other hand, we will miss the awesome burble and honk of the Hemi V-8 this engine replaces. We can’t begrudge Ram for replacing the Hemi with the Hurricane, though. The sound was arguably the best thing about Ram’s outgoing V-8, which never delivered the performance of its peers. And for the past two years, Ram has saddled the Hemi with the 48-volt eTorque mild hybrid system, which tends to attract mischievous electrical gremlins without delivering any discernible benefit. 

Ride Quality Is Job One 

The Hurricane engine is an iron fist in the velvet glove that is the Ram 1500 chassis. Since 2009, Ram has used coil springs (or air springs on high-end versions) at the rear axle where its competitors use leaf springs. As a result, it handles impacts just as comfortably with a bed full of air as it does with 1,600 pounds of compost in the back. The smooth and settled ride—along with the tranquil cabin—is one of the key reasons we think this work truck could realistically be used as a personal or family vehicle. 

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At 5,474 pounds, the Ram 1500 is one of the lightest full-size trucks we’ve tested in recent years, which helped it post one of the shortest 60-mph stops for the class at 127 feet. The steering is delightfully responsive and accurate for such a massive truck—although you can say the same thing about the Silverado and F-150 these days, too. 

This Is the New Truck? 

All Ram 1500s receive a subtle, tasteful exterior face-lift for 2025. Inside, though, you’ll spend your time looking at a five-year-old design. It’s a bummer Ram couldn’t budget for a light interior makeover because the dated look adds to impression that these are the cheap seats. 

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The Tradesman comes in two different four-door bodies (quad cab or the larger crew cab seen here) both exclusively sold with bench seating for six people. When the front center seat isn’t in use, the seat back folds forward to act as a center console, complete with three cupholders and a small storage cubby. But when the seat is in use, the passenger’s hands are the only cupholders available. Although the door pockets are large enough to swallow several water bottles, there are no molded indents to keep drinks from tipping over and sliding around as you accelerate and brake.  

Given the price and the target buyer, we can make peace with the small 8.4-inch touchscreen since it has the basics covered, including Apple CarPlay and Android Auto compatibility. We do wish the Uconnect infotainment system had been modernized with new graphics and improved resolution, though. 

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The $1,695 Tradesman Level 1 package goes a long way toward domesticating Ram’s work truck. It upgrades the front and rear bench seats from vinyl to cloth and adds satellite radio, carpeted floormats, a power sliding rear window, and two plastic storage bins in the floor of the second row. Functional upgrades also make the Tradesman a better tool. The $1,345 Trailer-Tow Group adds telescoping side mirrors, a trailer brake controller, and a trailer backup assistant. The $945 Bed Utility group transforms the basic steel box with a 400-watt household power outlet, a spray-in bed liner, a bed step, adjustable tie-downs, and bed lighting, while the $695 tonneau cover effectively turns it into a giant trunk. 

Can You Live With Less? 

Driving the Ram 1500 Tradesman for two weeks served as a reminder of just how much excess is packed into the new cars and trucks stocked on dealer lots. Can you live without power-deployed running boards, a multifunction tailgate, and a panoramic sunroof? Plenty of car shoppers would happily make those sacrifices for a cheaper monthly payment. How about a giant touchscreen, a wireless phone charger, or heated seats? If you can live with less, you can pocket a lot of money without sacrificing comfort. The Tradesman shows how the right trim of the right vehicle can deliver a fantastic driving experience while saving you thousands—or even tens of thousands—of dollars.