Now, I don't necessarily condone that, that goes against the principles of free market, but I do think there should be a little accountability for companies that are well outstepping the bounds. Seems as though the companies that advertise the most have far too high a mark up. Auto, insurance, beer, and pharmaceutical. The most ridiculous right now seems to be pharma and insurance. How is it you afford to advertise a drug that maybe 1% of the general population needs? And why are my auto premiums so high and coverage isn't as good. Ill gladly trade less Gecko, randy Johnson and Charley Daniels, for lower premiums. I'm not even allowed to drive my car without insurance, why do those bums get to squander my money on commercials and stadium naming rights?

 

My wife works as an underwriter for a major insurance player in Canada....as far as insurance goes...we totally agree. They keep premiums very high and have all the loops and red tape they can use not to pay you if something should happen.

Best example of this? check this out:

In Quebec, if you own an off-road vehicle, like a snowmobile or a 4 wheeler, it's mandatory to have a license plate and insurance in case you cross a public road. I had all this, paid up (fairly expensive BTW). I hit a car while I'm crossing the road, the guy burned the stop sign and I nailed his front fender. My sled had about 900$ worth of damage, and his car about 250$( I hit a 1989 Honda civic....the whole car is worth about that price).

I call my insurance and they tell me that I'm NOT insured if I'm on a public road. WHAT????
Yes...you are only covered for off-road incidents, even if you have a tag.

You see, in Quebec, anyone hurt on a public road is covered by the government insurance that you pay when paying your tags. Even if you are committing an illegal act, like running from the cops and crashing ( I don't agree with this, but it's the truth). So I'M RESPONSIBLE FOR BUYING THE GUY'S FENDER AND GETTING IT PAINTED, even tho I have insurance, and the rest of his car is a rust bucket. This guy is gonna take my money and never get that POS fixed,,,,I just know it.

All this WITH insurance.

as far as free market goes...companies NOT using government money to get bailed out of bankruptcy can sell as expensive as they want. But when WE pay to bail 'em out on top of buying their costly products, there should be some kind of limit there....

 

Max, it sounds like you're a bigger guy (according to your post, no offense meant), so it's understandable if you had trouble accessing the distributor cap. But, it's not anything new, almost all V8's with distributors placed in the rear are hard to access.

It's all part of working on your own stuff. Mechanics deal with quirky designs every day, and yet people wonder why it's so expensive to have their vehicles fixed.

Chrysler products are EASY to work on. Obviously there are some exceptions, but relative to what else is out there (try working on a typical Ford, Toyota, Honda, or Nissan sometime), the distributor cap on a Ram is a piece of cake.

Besides, try doing the distributor cap on a Grand Cherokee. Same 318/360 in your truck tucked into an engine bay half the size.

 

Work on my Honda and the distributor cap is right there on the side of the motor with nothing in it's way. It literally takes about 2 minutes to do a full tune up. That being said, the Ram is harder to work on than that, but it's still not that bad. I've worked on a lot worse. The difficulty level of working on the Ram wouldn't be towards the top of my list of complaints about this thing.

 

At one point, with the old Iron duke 4 cylinders, in the front wheel drive cars, the distributor was on the back side of the engine, UNDER the intake manifold. You could not see it, you could not touch it. You could not get at it from underneath. You have to basically lay on top of the engine, and reach around both sides of the intake, so that you could change the damn thing.

Every manufacturer has their quirks. I wanted a FULL size truck after trying to do a tune up on my S-10 blazer, with a 4.3..... I want to be able to open the hood, and SEE the spark plugs, not guess where they should be....

 

Ah, ain't one really any better than any other anymore. They all got their issues.

I belong to a hunting club where damn near every truck and SUV on the planet is represented. We'll pop a beer (or twelve) and compare issues among them from time to time. Furd has plugs that strip out the soft aluminum threads and pop thru the hood on 5.4s, heads that blow apart routinely on the PowerJoke 6.0s.

We got one guy got fed up with his Furd issues and bought a brand spanking new '08 'Yota Tundra. Had the rear diff go at 8k miles (common) and lost use of his truck for 11 WEEKS because newer, stronger diffs were on nationwide back-order. Then when he finally gets his truck back, he gets a recall for the cam shaft! Calls dealer for an appt. and guess what - yep - nationwide back-order! AND they advise him NOT to use his truck in the meantime as a failed cam will destroy his motor!

It ain't just Dodge, all the manufacturers have design flaws. The only thing I will say is that the foreign makers seem to step up and "do right" by the consumer more readily.

Dodge should have stepped up on the plenum and dash issues a decade ago and the LSD clips are STILL an issue (at least thru the 3rd Gens).
Ford has known about the the head issue in the 6.0 diesel almost since the day they went from 12 head bolts to 4, and instead of stepping up, they issues a TSB that states if the owner has "modified" the truck by as much as 1 HP over stock, the 6.0 head is only rated for stock HP, and the warranty claim is to be denied!!!
GM has the "DexCool" issue where it has been PROVEN to literally eat away their radiators (and even engine blocks) and they've not stepped to the plate either.

They all only care about the bottom line...

 

That sucks. The worst I've had to work on is my Chevy Caprice. The distributor is at the bottom on the front of the motor. The plug wires are super hard to change. They are routed through this really thin tube around the manifolds, and just nearly impossible to change on one side. I had to get a friend to do one side as I couldn't get them after hours of trying.

 

I think you hit the nail on the head here.

 

I have to say, those new Tundras are terrible. I've heard so many horror stories about them, and lets not forget the known frame issues where the bed has it's own version of "death wobble".

My cousin has a 2008 that I maintain. It burns 4 quarts of oil over the course of a 10,000 mile oil change interval (full synthetic with synthetic filter media). He's had a bunch of "little" issues with it, the most recent being pinion bearings in the rear end at 25k miles.

I'd be pissed if my brand new truck was burning a gallon of oil in 10k miles, but he still likes his truck.

 

Yeah I AM a big guy (no offense taken bud) and my forearms are ''popeye-like'' , it hurt me like hell to reach around the TB on the left side scraping against the throttle cable clip thing....I'm no junior when it comes to hard work, I modify my plow attachments myself and more often than not I have to put them on by myself....did the dually conversion myself on my 05,and all this outside in my gravel driveway... but this freaking cap got the best of me lol.

waiting on my cap to arrive at the parts store, 17$ with the rotor...should pick it up in about an hour and hoping to have time to put it on tonight and hear that 360 come to life again.