The Ram 1500’s twin-turbo, 3.0-liter inline-six is still so new that the jury hasn’t had enough time to decide if it’s reliable or not. Before they even got the chance to make a call, Ram put the Hemi V8 back in production, which really stole the spotlight. But the Hurricane I6 isn’t going anywhere, and as smaller truck engines become all the more common in the United States, it’s worth checking to see how they’re holding up.
This 2025 Ram 1500 rental with nearly 50,000 miles on the clock should do the trick just fine.
TFL Truck found the 1500 Rebel for sale at Johnson Auto Plaza in Colorado, and I was able to locate it on the dealer’s website. It’s a certified pre-owned 2025 model showing 48,105 miles since new. They’re asking $49,988 for the rig, which is $16,697 off the original MSRP according to the Monroney.
Straight away, I don’t want to pretend like 48,000 miles is a ton for a pickup truck; it’s not. This machine still has about 12,000 miles left on the powertrain warranty (it was built too early to qualify for Ram’s 10-year/100,000-mile guarantee). But that is a lot of miles to travel in one year, and because it’s a rental, you can pretty much bet it’s been driven harder than your neighbor’s creampuff that lives in a climate-controlled garage.
Still, the 420-horsepower inline-six seems to be running strong. Andre from TFL had only nice things to say about its performance, which is better than the 5.7-liter Hemi’s, even in the Hurricane’s standard output guise. The onboard computer shows it’s returning about 17 mpg, which is lower than the EPA’s rating for 4×4 Ram 1500s with this engine. It has the chunky Goodyear Wrangler tires, of course, though the mileage seems to be so low because the engine has quite a few idle hours—nearly a quarter of its total runtime has been spent parked.
There aren’t any obvious leaks, and the belt seems to be in good shape. You can’t exactly do a visual assessment of the turbos without taking them off and looking inside, so that’s sort of an unknown. However, as we saw with the Tundra V6 nightmare, engines with severe problems tend to start showing them fairly soon. Toyota was replacing engines less than a year after launching its twin-turbo 3.5-liter V6 in those trucks, and so far, there haven’t been any widespread powertrain issues like that on the Ram (or the Jeep Wagoneer models that also run this engine).
What’s maybe more likely to show significant wear than the engine after 48,000 miles is the interior. This Ram is decked out with black and red upholstery and a 12-inch vertical display. From what I can tell, there’s no crazy wear from drivers climbing in and out or touching the screen with their grubby hands. I’d be less impressed by that if it were someone’s personal vehicle, but because this truck probably had dozens of drivers who couldn’t care less if it got scratched or scraped, that seems to be a solid sign.
This isn’t a comprehensive teardown of the truck, so take it with a grain of salt. That said, I’m at least encouraged by how this 2025 Ram held up in a typically harsh use case. We’ll see if anything pops up as these start hitting 100,000 miles or more, but for now, the forecast seems positive.
Can New Turbo Trucks Last? Let's Drive This Ram 1500 Hurricane to Find Out!
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