I took my Dakota in to the dealership for an oil change and brake service. About 2 weeks ago, I had the front brakes done as I was getting pulsing in the brake pedal along with uneven stopping. All indications of warped rotors. So they did the front brakes including the pads and rotors but said the rear brakes were still fine. The mechanic told me something before leaving that struck me as odd. He mentioned that I may still get some pulsing but that it should go away. That was a new one on me. Every other time that I either did my own brakes or had them done, any pulsing would immediately be gone. BTW, at first, the mechanic told me that all my brakes were fine but upon my insistence, he "took another test drive" and determined that my front brakes needed servicing. Over the next few days, even though the pulsing in the pedal was gone, there was still shuddering upon coming to a stop. So I didn't have time to get this back until last Thur. I talked to the service writer about the issue and what the mechanic had told me and he was very surprised. He said he would have another mechanic take a look. He decides that the ball joints need to be replaced along with the back brakes needing service. I also learn that one of the front rotors was glazed so he went ahead and replaced both of those as well. So now a couple hours later, I am told that the truck was ready. I paid the bill and was getting ready to leave. When I went outside, the mechanic was by the truck and said that something was still off. He mentioned that there was a weird slipping when going around corners and thought that it might be the torque converter, trans or something else. I knew what he was talking about. On dry pavement, cornering is fine but on wet pavement, if I use too much gas, the inside rear tire would slip. I had always attributed it to low tread on the tires and just took it easy on turns. The mechanic however thought it was an issue. And he said the shuddering on braking was still there. So I let him continue working. They gave me a rental and said to call back on Fri. So I get a call late Fri afternoon and am told the truck is once again ready. I stop in at the dealership and learned that it should be ready in about a half hor. This time the mechanic tells me that he discovered that the brand new rear drums were out of round and had them cut. He does a test drive after finishing and tells me again that there is something wrong. They again put me into a rental and said that maybe Mon it should be ready. So I get a call today that it is done. I go back to the dealership and sign the paperwork and leave. It feels much better but there was still a very slight shudder I thought. About 2 miles away, I realize that I had left my cell phone in the rental and turn around to go back. I had to use a parking lot to turn around and as I drove over a bump, I heard 3 chimes from the dash and out of the corner of my eye, notice that several warning lamps had illuminated briefly but then went out. I thought that was odd but just kept heading back. Upon taking off after a red light, again I got the chimes and I looked immediately at the dash. I noticed that the ABS light, low oil light, and some other light on the left came on briefly and the tachometer dropped about 3-400 RPM while the lamps were illuminated. I never had this issue before having the brake work done. It did this again one more time before I reached the dealership. This time still another mechanic came to help me. He took it back into a service bay to run diagnostics. I also informed him of the turn signal issue I had about a month ago where at random times when using the right turn signal, the left ones would flash instead. The left turn signal worked fine but the right would act erratically. It seemed to have fixed itself after a couple sharp raps on the top of the steering column. The issue hasn't come back. A little while later, the mechanic came up to me and told me that the ABS control module was causing my issue and needed to be replaced and would also replace the multifunction (turn signal) stalk at the same time. I expressed concern about his diagnosis. I said that I could understand the ABS light coming on but that the chimes and other warning lights coming on didn't make any sense if it was the ABS module. His response basically was that with a bad module in a BUS setup would cause a disruption of the signals going to the computer and could easily result in several different warning lights coming on. Personally I think this is BS but I had to give him a chance. I have had several other cars with the Can-BUS and never had anything similar happen. I was sent home in another rental car and hopefully tomorrow will be a better day.

I am frustrated... I did try to search this issue on the board and wasn't able to find anything similar. So great gurus of the Dodge Forum, what do you think is going on here?

 

I think you need a new dealership/mechanic(s). That place sounds pretty... iffy... to me.

 

This is a dealership that I have been using for many, many years and have always had good experiences. Just a quick update. I finally got the truck back tonight. So far, it seems to be fixed. The braking is smooth again and no more weird warning lights or chimes the whole way home. It appears that it may really have been the ABS module which they replaced. We shall see but so far so good.

 

I'd hate to see the bill you had to pay for all that. Just an FYI, if you don't know about it, disconnecting the battery for a couple hours cures many electrical ills on these trucks. I used to disconnect mine about once a month.

 

It cost about $360 for the front brakes about 2 weeks ago. The back brakes and deductible for the ball joints, warning lights, ABS module was a total of $498. It could have been a lot worse.

Today I finally got a chance to drive on wet pavement. We had some pretty good storms here. In the past, I would have to lightly press the throttle off the line or the rear tires would spin. If I wanted to take off quickly, I would have to put it momentarily into 4WD and after going, switch it off again. Also, like I mentioned above, I had to be very light on the throttle going around corners or I would get some wheel spin. Well today none of that happened. I was able to take off normally from a stop with no wheel spin and corners were no longer an issue. So right now I am happy. I don't know if it was front brakes, back brakes, a combination of both or the ABS module but it seems to have worked.