Dodge most certainly does not have the corner on that particular market. Every manufacturer has their 'interesting' to work on vehicles. Look up the labor time to change spark plugs in a ford fullsize V-8 pickup. 3 flippin HOURS. I did mine in under 30 minutes.........

Its that whole "I know, lets put the engine halfway under the cowl, so the mechanics will hate us." thing..... I swear, automotive engineers HATE mechanics........

 

Frame recall I hadn't heard about. I hadn't heard about them having rusting issues since the 80's. However, at least they did recall it. Dodge makes these ****ty designs and doesn't recall them, you have to pay for them.

As I said, with the 4x4 problems at least they are recalling them. You don't see Dodge recalling their transmissions or their cracked dashes, or their pleneum gaskets, or their crappy A/C evaporators. They want you to pay to fix them. That being said, the 4x4 is a lot smaller of an issue than what Dodges have.

As for the gas pedal that recall was a damn joke. If the gas pedal slips put the damn car in neutral. It's not that hard, not to mention that most everyone it happened to was kind of on the sketchy side. Like the big hoax about that guy. So who knows if it ever even happened. I have my serious doubts.

That being said, I prefer Honda (which hasn't had these recalls), but Toyota would be my next choice, and Honda doesn't have a decent truck so that leaves Toyota.
The media just blew those recalls out of proportion. During that time GM had a recall about the power steering pumps locking up and you not being able to turn the steering wheel. Yet that was only on the news one day here, then they went back to talking about the gas pedal issue on the Toyotas. If the gas pedal really did stick, it was still a bunch of idiots that had a problem with it as you can just put the car in neutral.

Overall, while that does show Toyota has a few issues, which I know every car does, at least they take care of them. Honda's have a few issues too, but they are much much smaller issues than what the Dodges seem to have. Plus it's 1 or 2 issues not a issue with every major part of the car. On top of that, they recall them so you don't have to pay for them anyway.

 

And she has to get a tire at the dealer why? There are lots of other guys with Honda Civics that don't have to take their cars to the dealer to get a tire.

 

BTW as hard as it may be to believe recalls don't really bother me. It's just the company manning up and saying look we realize we have an issue so we will take care of it for you for free.

Had Dodge done that and said look, we realize we have a problem with transmissions, cracked dashes, pleneum gaskets, and the lsds used in rear ends, and we are going to go ahead and fix those for you for free, I'd have a hell of a lot more respect for them. Instead, they deny having the problems so that the customer has to pay to fix them all. That's the difference between a company that cares about it's customers and one that doesn't.

 

The auto manufacturers are only required to issue recalls, and repair them at the manufacturers expense, for safety items. The dash is arguably NOT a safety issue..... nor is the plenum. The LSD, I could see....

If the potential failure does not contribute DIRECTLY to potential serious bodily harm/death, then the manufacturer is under no government obligation to fix them. Like the GM paint problems back in the early 90's. In that particular case though, GM wanted to keep their customers happy, and coming back and buying more vehicles, so, they has a 'special policy adjustment', and if your car/truck was less then six years old/under 100K miles, they would repaint it.... Made folks happy, and sold some more vehicles.

Dodge/Chrysler, on the other hand...... Didn't do anything at all to help out their customers...... Once of the reasons that they had to be bailed out. Again..... Sure, there were other considerations, (management style.....) but, if you don't have customers that want to buy your product.... you have serious issues.

I see a fair bit of substandard engineering in the truck, and I wonder what dodge was thinking..... but, then, I remember, its all about the bottom line. Doesn't matter if you sell a crappy product, so long as folks will still BUY them, nothing else matters. If they can skimp in an area or three, and use cheaper parts, and sell the truck for the same/higher price, that's money in their pocket. To heck with the customers.

Its the whole instant gratification (money in my pocket RIGHT NOW), vs. long term security. (sell the man another truck, when he gets tired of the nice reliable truck he has now.) We can see which side of that equation generally wins out.

 

that could be loll....I have to agree with hometheaterman on one thing.....had Dodge recalled their faulty plenum pans they would have shown care and commercial ethics. This is by FAR the most common flaw on their fleet. It's almost like they went all **** about the look of the company at the detriment of the paying customer. EVERY 2nd gen ram I owned (5 so far) had that problem to fix.

I wonder why California, with their very high standards for emissions control didn't put the pressure on Dodge to fix plenums, as that smoke is very bad.

 

I think it has more to do with the cost saving measures to keep the cost of doing business with union labor. Some of those benefit and retirement packages are flat ridiculous.

Detroit will never rebuild its manufacturing base until it can compete with non union states.

 

true....it almost killed the industry in America....Canada is no exception...Hyundai built a very large production line in Quebec in the late 80's or early 90's....and they realized there was no way they could keep it up at these labor costs....the cars built here were no better than those built in Asia, just more expensive to build...

 

And lets not forget free trade, NAFTA, and tax credits for creating (moving) jobs in (to) developing nations.

But, all that aside, the quality of american auto manufacturing has been going down hill for a while. Some of that can be attributed to 'cost-saving', and yes, labor is a part of that puzzle. but, does a truck built in mexico, where the workers are paid SIGNIFICANTLY less, with NO benefits, and NO union, cost any less than the same truck built in the states? Sure doesn't.

But I am dragging this WAY off topic.

 

You're absolutely right. That should be against the law.....builders should have to conform to a price limit compared to their cost of fabrication...like they cost say 10000 to build, then they have to be sold at a MAXIMUM of 30% profit.