"I drove a Ridgeline, and I liked it".

FYI- The waterproof trunk is huge. And lockable.

 

fwd and unibody.

 

Call me old fashioned, but a truck shouldn't be a unibody.

 

Not to mention:
Heated mirrors
Heated seats
Electric sliding rear window
More payload than a Tacoma or Tundra
Bed will hold a 4 x 8 sheet of plywood
No TSB's

 

^^what willy wonka said...

 

saw one tonight with a cab. and i had to take a 2nd look to even see that it was a ridgeline. just looks 100% like an suv! at least if you need a cab on the taco, you can still tell its a truck and not an suv. also idk why you would get a ridgeline and put a cab on it.

 

THIS!

 

yep and it’s FWD. only time the rear wills give power is if the front wheels start slipping/spinning. and as far as i know it’s the only truck with AWD. and it does not work like a 4wd system like on most trucks/suv’s. it works more like an AWD system.

 

and holds a POS spare tire instead of a full size spare.

 

The looks have grown on my over the years. Super comfortable, if you don't tow a lot or offroad a lot and want the creature comforts, features and cool storage it's a serious option.

Of course the dumbass die-hard ford/chevy/dodge guys will call it just another crappy little "ricer" truck wannabe like the taco and tundra.. which actually makes me like it even more.

This is cool for groceries, I made my own net but it's still obnoxious when everything slides up to the cab. And it's a cooler with bed lights! LOL





Ain't the belle of the ball, but can be built to be capable off-road if you gotta-have-dat.



Best part is it takes a little market share from Toyota and makes them calculate improving the Taco.

 

They may have dumb marketing, but I don't write these things.

Wikipedia:
Marketing and sales

Although the Ridgeline is more aptly classified as a sport utility truck, this recently-introduced category is not well known with consumers, initially with the only other rivals being the Chevrolet Avalanche and Ford Explorer Sport Trac. The closest rivals may be double cab versions of compact pickups like the Toyota Tacoma and the Nissan Frontier, both of which follow the traditional pickup layout.[1][2]
Honda decided instead to advertise the Ridgeline as an alternative to traditional 1/2 ton full-size pickups such as the Ford F-150, Dodge Ram, Chevrolet Silverado, and Toyota Tundra, all of which had standard V8 engines. This likely harmed Ridgeline sales, as some cited the sole V6 engine powertrain offering insufficient power (Honda has never developed a V8 for passenger vehicles[5]), the lack of ruggedness due to its unibody construction, and its relatively short cargo bed compared to a standard pickup truck which made it unsuitable for contractors. However, the unibody construction offers increase torsional rigidity and does not flex at the seam of the bed like traditional body-on-frame designs.[3] Unlike other crew cabs, the Honda Ridgeline lacks the option of six-passenger seating, as it only offers bucket seats and not bench seating in the front.

 

The Tacoma's biggest competitor was the Ranger until like 05 when their sales started to plummet. Now I guess the Frontier is the biggest one.

 

You actually like the column shifter? I like the gated console shifter in the Taco a lot more - much easier to downshift for engine braking. The Taco's driving position and controls are very car-like, which is great in my opinion.

On a slippery uphill surface, Honda's system tends to shuffle between FWD and 4WD, which results in poor traction. It's worse than a full-time system like Subaru's, but the hardware is a bit lighter. AFAIK Toyota RAV4's AWD system works along similar principles.

If anything the sales failure of the Ridgeline probably compelled Toyota to keep the Tacoma traditional in the next generation.

 

Just shows perceptions can be wrong. I've been seeing more of them locally and on the road, but their numbers have been on the decline.

Ford on the other hand is rockin' out with their C&%K out.

http://www.goodcarbadcar.net/search/label/Truck Sales?max-results=5

Rank
Best-Selling Truck
May 2013
% Change
Year
To Date
YTD
% Change​

Ford F-Series ​

71,604 ​

Chevrolet Silverado ​

43,283 ​

Dodge Ram ​

31,672
GMC Sierra ​

16,061 ​

Toyota Tacoma ​

14,727 ​

Toyota Tundra ​

9950 ​

Nissan Frontier ​

6570 ​

Chevrolet Avalanche ​

1980 ​

Honda Ridgeline ​

1626 ​

Nissan Titan ​

1402 ​

Chevrolet Colorado ​

244 ​

Cadillac Escalade EXT ​

200 ​

GMC Canyon ​

88 ​

Suzuki Equator ​

----- ​

---​

--- ​

------------

---​

Total ​

199,407+ 19.2%873,696+ 14.5%

 

I would own Dodge/Ford/Toyota before a chevy.

 

It's worth noticing, unless you are the F150. Only 1/9th, So? In my business (heart valve replacement) we have a saying. A few hundred million here, a few hundred million there.. eventually it adds up to real money.

I don't know how old you are, but in the 80's, Hyundai was a complete joke. They were considered the poor mans Honda, although they took such a small percentage of Honda's business they were ignored. They could have been bought out and shut down with little to no money at several points.

That was the 80s.. think Honda notices them now? lol almost 57,000 sold in May alone.

http://www.thehindu.com/business/Industry/hyundai-may-sales-up-21-per-cent/article4771900.ece

 

I actually owned a ridgeline before I got my tacoma for about two years. Hands down it beats the taco on road driving, BUT offroad it sucks a big one. The final straw for the ridgeline was when I exploded the side curtain airbags offroading.



The Ridgeline doesn't have the luxury of turning them off sooo... It went into water landing mode, and deployed the flotation devices.

I miss certain things about the ridgline, like the ride, the storage, and the interior. However I do not regret making the change to the tacoma because I like to offroad and there are so many aftermarket options.

 

It is actually a unit body on closed box frame.

 

I have no issue about carrying fire wood -lots of it and anything else through my woods the Ridgeline wouldn't last a week and I would have to make two trips to the Taco's one. If I needed a highway cruzer that I could go to the big box store and get a bale of peat moss the Ridgeline would be a good choice.