Yeah, 'cuz it just ain't right that twelve to eighteen year old vehicles might not be as good as new. Mufkers owe us all for faded paint and seat covers, too.

I'm far too liberal for any English-speaking country but that 5h17 pushes it far further than even I would go. Time to put on the big boy undies and just freakin' deal with it.

 

^^^ Seriously. Thanks for reassuring me that i'm not the only one who isnt gonna sue dodge for not building a perfect everlasting piece of machinery.

 

I'm not saying that the other guy should be, but I'd be ashamed of myself for demanding that the US Senate drop everything else they're doing to make free car parts for my long out of warranty used old pickup truck show up at my door.

 

d@mn...I was hoping for a new dash, oh and a transmission, might as well throw in an engine, and interior, yeah, and new paint..think we could also get tires replaced too? Cause mine are worn and I'm sure it's a safety hazard. Heck, they should just give me a whole new truck for all this heartache!!

 

Hooray for Communism!!!

 

I'm going to revive this thread for a bit, I have 14 years experience as an injection molding process engineer/technician. I know my plastics very well I read a comment from someone claiming to be an engineer and that person stated that it's not the plastic but the flexing of the truck that's causing the problem. That maybe part of the problem but the truth is that the plastic used IS FLAWED! I'm new to the forum but will try to upload photos that I just took that shows the problem and will give explanation as to what you see in the photos.

My 99 ram sport quad cab started getting dash cracks at about the 7 year mark, I now have an 03 ram quad cab 4x4 slt. after a few years the dash started cracking and here it is 2013 and the dash pad is pretty much gone. I purchased a dash pad from a local salvage yard but wasn't able to get the rest of the top dash so I'm now looking at aftermarket replacements. Not cover but full replacements. I started taking the old pad off today and it just fell apart in my hands. I inspected the pieces after removal and was upset by what I found! SPLAY!!!

What is splay? Splay is a defect that can occur during an injection molding process and can be caused by different reasons. Of these reasons moisture, heat degradation, and shear are the most common reasons. MOISTURE, some plastics have to be dried before melted and molded into a part in order to remove the moisture from the plastic. If those types of plastics aren't dried properly the moisture contained within the plastic cause strength issues (brittleness) as well as can cause cosmetic issues, and a shorten life span, splay is one of the signs of moisture! DEGRADATION, often caused by excessive heat or prolonged exposure to high molding temperature which degrades the material being processed. Plastics that suffer with this will also be brittle and have shorten life span, spaly can be caused by degradation of the material. SHEAR, closely related to heat degradation as during the injection molding process if the plastic has to much flow resistance for the speed at which one is trying to push the plastic in can cause degradation of the material being used. Brittleness and a shorten life span result from this and splay is a sign of this as well. Injection molding technicians have the means during molding to determine what is causing the splay and have the abilities to fix whichever problem could be causing he splay. Why splayed parts were kept who knows.

I'm disappointed over my dash, very disappointed after noticing the parts were flawed before they made it to the assembly line![IMG][/IMG]

 

Thank you for that explanation. I believe this has been beat to death already. Probably time to close this thread.

 

Agreed.

 

good explanation.
where in the picture is the "splay"? is it the whitish splatter markings?

mine also started cracking at about 7-8 years.

why were defective parts kept and used? because they made them as cheap as possible and dodge doesn't give a **** as long as it outlasts the formal warranty period.

 

Yes the white streaks are splay. I purchased another dash pad from a salvage yard yesterday off a wrecked ram that doesn't have a crack on it, it doesn't have splay on it like the piece that shattered does.