2009 Honda Ridgeline Review

Honda manufactures some of the best vehicles on the planet; they reach their target audiences and achieve all the goals they set out to reach. For most of the time they seem to have got it right. Then they launch the Ridgeline which was supposed to be a pick-up truck, and boy it was anything but right. I don’t know what idea Honda has of an average trucking enthusiast, but their all wrong nonetheless. Pointing out the major grievances of our trucking enthusiast, a ‘real’ truck does not have an independent rear suspension. Should feature a V-8 and give low-range. And a real truck can never, ever share a chassis with a minivan.

Now, forget about what a ‘true trucker’ thinks, we’ll try to cook up an unbiased review.

Let’s start first with the looks, the Ridgeline looks like a pick up truck, I’ll give it that, but when you  put it up against the other pick-ups in its category, it fails miserably. It fails to grab any ones attention, the tiny wheels  are lost in the wheel-arcs and the front end is styled to ‘look like’ a pick up truck, but that fails badly. The rear-end looks like sleek, but boring and would only give competition to a cat’s litter box. the trunk and  tailgate that open can open in two different ways, which is really unnecessary.

Under the hood is where Honda shines with the 3.5Liter, SOHC 24-valve, V-6 giving out 250bhp @247lb-ft of torque. This front-engine four-wheel-drive, four-door, five passenger pickup is mated to a 5-speed automatic. The new ridgeline produces 3 horses more than its older version and can do a 0-60 mph in 7.7 second which is two tenths, of the ford F150s time, all thanks to the revised camshafts and larger intake valves and better intake manifold.

The handling and braking of the ridgeline hasn’t been any different from the older version. The interiors were looking quite drab and had some additions  like the auxiliary input jack, a rearview camera, and Bluetooth on the top-line RTL/Navigational trim.

So it boils down to this, why would Honda repeat the mistakes of the previous version, are they mad?….No. Honda are not looking to please the true trucker, as a matter of fact they don’t give a damn about what he thinks, because in spite of the glaring errors, they’ve managed to sell 40,000 units or more of these . call it brand value or anything you like, but they were aiming for that sect who find it comfortable on a daily basis, like navigating through a mall parking lot. Because frankly speaking this ‘truck’ cannot pull a boat or carry one and neither can it dance in the sand.   An avid trucking fan would be disappointed, thoroughly, while anyone else (who has no idea about trucks or cars for that matter),wouldn’t find a lot to complain about. The Ridgeline is priced at $28,670- $ 37,189.