I think you got most of the problems covered. One I see you forgot though is the evap core's for the A/C are very prone to leaking. I talked to a owner of a local garage and he said he has never seen one on these trucks that wasn't leaking. They are that bad.

The LSD in the rear ends also have a lot of problems if you have one but I see you mentioned rear ends. I can't think of many more problems other than that as I think you covered most of them.

So basically overall the whole truck is a piece of **** and they have a ton of problems along with getting crappy gas mileage and having very little power for such a big engine that gets such bad gas mileage.

 

About the interior "plastic" cracking syndrome,...I just "overuse" my "Armor-All" and it actually softens it and it don't crack, at least not in my vehicles....+ it looks great! My last Dodge Ram 1994 w/318cid...142,200 miles on it...ran great, current one, 1995 Laramie,..215,400 miles on her,...runs strong, trans. is shifting proper, OD switch works...Hell,...THE CIGARETTE lighter still works! BUT,...if you love working on trucks,....you came to the right place..."DODGE" ...HOMETHEATERMAN,...but we love our "CRAP" don't we!!!

 

Geeze hometheaterman having a bad day? All trucks have their problems. Ford can't keep an exhaust manifold from leaking, Chevy can't keep a cab corner from rusting to save their lives, Nissan can't find a way to make their paint stick to anything, and Toyota, well I don't know of any problems with Toyota just because I have never owned one.

If you're so unhappy with your truck sell it and buy something else you can b*** about.

Relex I would guess that the reason you have problems with wheel bearings it because of your massive tires. That puts a lot more stress on the bearings.

 

HOMETHEATERMAN; Have you ever had this problem,...you change out your right rear brake light bulb and RT. rear reverse bulb...and almost right away it dims down, like power being sucked out,..and the next day..nothing, ..burnt out again.???(shi**y ground maybe...frayed wires crossing...)

 

Ah, this thread blew up. Awesome. I found one I'm looking at. 97 ext cab 4x4 with the 360 and it has the infamous chrysler death peal on the hood, lol. The only thing that worries me with them is the tran's I have yet to see it in person or drive it. I would just hate to trade off my ZJ and the trans explode shirtly thereafter. I've done a few intake/plenum's on chrysler small block's so that's no big deal. I've had a few ZJ grand cherokee's with 318's. I've never had the pleasure of owning a genII ram unfortunately, but I have always wanted to get a hold of one. Anything specific for 97's to be on the watch for?

 

He put his ram up for sale two weeks ago.....lol...
and thats very true about the wheel bearings ....but I can atest to the fact that the factory LSD package does fail very often....was told that by dealership as well as the shop I had mine rebuilt at...

 

97 were the last of the stronger dashboards...I would deffinatly testdrive and look for slop in the steering....as well as hard shifting. check the fluid and make sure it doesnt smell burnt...ask the owner what kind of fliud he used (supposedly anything but atf +4 or older atf versions will harm the trans.) also look for a sticker on the computer pcm that says somthing about a factory update after the year 2000 (deathflash) if you have it you will want a tuner to get the power back it robs)

 

if you take care of it it will last a long time , people on here have rams past 300xxx miles still running these

just make sure you have some money saved

 

this about covers it.

but about the rear ends, i think they're only weak if they have LSD. unless by weak, you mean the high gear ratio (3.55) that robs off the line power.

the front brakes wear kind of fast, and you have to hit the star adjusters on the rear brakes at every oil change.

i don't see axle u joints on the 4x4s. or crap track bars.

 

Yeah I think the rear ends only have the LSD issue. That's usually what seems to fail.

I've not had all of the issues on that list but I've had quite a few of them and had to fix them. I know how very expensive it was to fix the issues I had. I'd hate to see what it would cost if I had all of those happen.

Basically I just don't see a good thing about these trucks. I know this is a Dodge site where most people own them and love them but honestly it's nothing great about these. All issues of stuff breaking aside. A buddy has a Chevy 2500 with a 6.0L. It gets way better gas mileage than my truck and has way more power. Makes my truck feel like a moped. Does it not seem odd that a engine that's not much bigger has so much more power and gets so much better gas mileage? I find that crazy. Why get a underpowered truck that doesn't get good gas mileage either.

Then you come down to the problems. I agree every truck has it's problems but damn I've never seen any other brand that has as many issues as Dodge vehicles seem to. It seems like most vehicles have one or two common problems. However, when it comes to these Rams it's a page long list of common problems and most of them are expensive to fix. It's not like it's 1 or 2 problems like the other brands seem to have or even a bunch of cheap problems. It's a bunch of expensive problems it has.

I highly doubt I'd buy a Chevy or Ford either. If I did buy another truck from the big 3 again it would most likely be a Ford. However, I'd be very hesitant to buy another vehicle from any of the others. Why would you even consider one unless you needed a 3/4 ton or 1 ton truck. Then they are really your only options. If you just want a half ton why not look at Toyota or Nissan and get a much better truck? If you need a car once again why look at a Ford, Chevy, or Dodge. You could get something much better from Honda, Toyota, Subaru, Nissan, or one of those.