Getting Serious About Off-Roading With the Ram 700 Bighorn
The Ram 700 is a compact truck that most people in the US have never heard of. It shares its platform with the Ram ProMaster City van, which tells you everything you need to know about what you're working with before you even pop the hood. It's not a proper body-on-frame truck in the traditional sense. It's a unibody light commercial vehicle that Ram decided to give a bed to. The Bighorn trim level adds some off-road equipment on top of that base, and that's where it gets interesting. Let's just be clear about what that claim actually means. The 2022 Ram 700 Bighorn comes with a 2.4-liter Tigershark inline-four producing 183 horsepower and 175 pound-feet of torque. It has a four-speed automatic transmission. Four speeds. In 2022. This isn't a criticism of the writing, it's just a mechanical fact that will affect every decision you make about what this truck can and cannot do off-road. The Bighorn trim adds something called the Active Drive Low package, which includes a two-speed transfer case with a 2.92:1 low range. That gives you a combined reduction ratio of about 21.5:1 when you're crawling. The stock tires are Goodyear Wrangler All-Terrain Code E in 265/70R17 size. Ground clearance sits at roughly 8.5 inches unladen, and approach and departure angles are around 26 and 21 degrees respectively. Those numbers aren't terrible for the class, but they're not going to impress anyone who's spent time in a Jeep Gladiator or a Tacoma.
Here's the thing nobody tells you about this truck. The differential is a conventional open design front and rear. No locking differentials from the factory. The electronic traction management system does brake-based traction control, which means when one wheel loses contact or slips, it applies the brake to that wheel and routes power to the wheel that still has grip. It works. It's not as good as a locked locker, but for slow technical crawling at moderate difficulty levels, it gets the job done. The problem is that sustained brake-based traction control will heat up your brake rotors pretty quickly, and once they fade, you're done. I ran into this exact issue last fall on a trail near Flagstaff. We were crossing a rocky washout section where the truck would pivot on a large boulder, lifting one rear tire completely off the ground. The traction control would momentarily hold us in place, but after about six or seven attempts over the same obstacle, the rear brakes were visibly smoking and the system stopped responding with any meaningful effect. What I ended up doing was carrying a set of traction boards and a pair of ARB-style air lockers for the rear. When the electronic system started fading, I'd pull over, swap in the lockers if we were stuck, or use the traction boards to give the lifted tire something to bite into. This added maybe twenty minutes to what should have been a ten-minute section, but it kept us moving instead of waiting for the brakes to cool down. The suspension is a four-link coil setup in the rear with a leaf spring in the front. It's tuned for payload capacity, not articulation. You'll get about six to eight inches of wheel travel on each corner before you start binding. That's adequate for moderate trails but you'll feel it immediately if you're used to driving a truck built specifically for off-road use. The steering rack is electrically assisted and the gear ratio is on the slower side, which helps with precision at low speeds but makes trail feeding through dense brush feel sluggish.
One counter-intuitive thing about this truck that most buyers miss: the 2.4-liter engine actually has enough torque in the low range for very slow crawling, but it struggles significantly at higher off-road speeds. Once you're moving above about five or six miles per hour over rough terrain, the power delivery becomes thin. The four-speed transmission makes this worse because third gear is too tall for anything below about twenty-five miles per hour, and fourth gear is essentially only useful on hardpack fire roads. You'll find yourself riding the clutch in second gear for long stretches on technical sections, which leads to another problem. The clutch on this truck is a single-disc unit sized for a light commercial vehicle, not for repeated high-friction engagement in off-road conditions. After a day of serious trail use, I've seen the clutch slide noticeably. Not enough to strand you, but enough that you'll feel it during your first few minutes of driving home on the highway when you're trying to merge onto a ramp. It recovers after cooling down, usually about fifteen to twenty minutes of highway driving, but that's a limitation you need to plan around. If your off-road day is going to be longer than three hours of actual trail time, consider whether this truck is the right tool or whether you should be looking at something with a heavier-duty clutch package. One area where the Ram 700 Bighorn genuinely excels is approach and departure angles relative to its size. Because it's short with a wheelbase of only 121.5 inches, it can angle over obstacles that would snag a much larger truck. The cab-forward design of the ProMaster platform gives you an approach angle that's competitive with vehicles twice its price. I've run this truck through trails that I wouldn't attempt in my friend's Toyota 4Runner because the Ram 700 simply doesn't have enough front overhang to catch.
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The wading depth is rated at about 30 inches, which is respectable for a truck of this class. The engine air intake is positioned high on the passenger side, and the exhaust exits well forward under the bed. I've pushed this truck through several creek crossings in the 24 to 26 inch range without issue, but I wouldn't go much deeper without significant modifications. The electronics modules are not sealed to IP68 standards, and standing water at those depths will find its way into places it shouldn't be. If you're planning to use this truck seriously off-road, here's what I'd prioritize spending money on. First, a set of 31-inch all-terrain tires. The stock 17-inch wheels with 265/70s are actually a decent starting point because the tall sidewall gives you some built-in cushioning, but upgrading to a 31x10.5R17 in a mud-terrain like a BFGoodrich KM3 or a Toyo Open Country M/T will make a noticeable difference. Just be aware that going taller than 31 inches will require a suspension lift to avoid rub, and the existing suspension components aren't designed to handle the additional leverage that taller tires create. Second, skid plates. The factory underbody protection is minimal at best. You're looking at bare aluminum panels that will peel back on anything larger than a coffee table rock. An aftermarket skid plate set from someone like Rough Country or TeraFlex will protect the oil pan, transmission pan, and transfer case for a fraction of what you'd pay to replace them. This is not optional if you plan on crawling.
Third, and this might surprise people, upgrade the shocks. The stock shocks are gas-pressurized Monroe units that are decent for highway driving and light trail use, but they bottom out violently on bigger hits. A set of Bilstein 5100s or Fox 2.0s on all four corners will transform how the truck handles rough terrain. The difference is so significant that I've had people driving behind me on trails assume I'd lifted the truck. I hadn't. Just better shocks. The biggest limitation of this truck, and I need to be blunt about it, is that it was never designed to be an off-road vehicle. It was designed to be a cheap utility truck for carrying tools and equipment around a worksite. Every modification you make to improve its off-road capability is fighting against the fundamental architecture of the vehicle. The unibody construction, the lighter-duty suspension components, the underpowered transmission, the small-displacement engine. These are all compromises made to hit a price point that undercuts competitors by several thousand dollars. That said, for beginner to intermediate off-roaders who want something that's affordable, easy to park, short enough to not catch on rocks, and capable of handling most trail conditions up to moderate difficulty, the Ram 700 Bighorn is genuinely competent. It's not the ultimate off-road truck. No vehicle that costs under twenty-five thousand dollars is. But if you understand what you're buying, respect its limitations, and modify it appropriately, it can be a very capable trail rig without requiring a second mortgage to build out.
The alternative to consider if you're serious about off-roading is the used Toyota Yaris Truck or the Ford Maverick with the 4x4 package. The Maverick especially has gained a lot of attention recently as a budget off-road platform, and it has a more modern powertrain with better gearing. But those alternatives cost more upfront, and the Ram 700 remains one of the cheapest entry points into four-wheel driving if you can find one in your region.
