Yea, better chill though before I get the old heave ho! I may need the help of some of these fine Ram owners in the future, don't want to burn and a**es...er.. I mean bridges.
Like your truck by the way, I had a white 99 club cab with the 318. I realy liked it better than my 04 reg. cab with the 4.7.

 

It's hard to badmouth Ford over transmission failure when Dodge had issues with the transmission's in their 2nd Generation Rams.

It happened to Dodge in 1994-2001 and now it's happening to Ford.

 

One of the guy's here had a 01 Ram and was told the trans was bad. Turned out it was
just some trash in a solenoid operated valve. I just wonder how many problems with modern
cars and trucks are just owners wigging out every time the vehicle hiccups or some dumb *** tech. giving a b.s. opinion?

 

It does seem like quite a few problems with 2nd gen era transmission, 46RE etc... have some simple little problems, or the infamous check valve clogged up causing the transmission to burn up.

Sometimes we get lucky and it's just a simply little problem, sometimes the whole thing get's toasted.

 

The 46re is a pretty bad transmission. Hell I'm old enough to remember when EVERYONE used the phrase "best V8 engines on the planet mated to the worst transmissions" daily when talking about a Dodge anything, be it truck, muscle car, etc. One of the very few good things that came from Daimler (Mercedes) ownership was the transmissions that came with the 4.7 & Hemi engines. I won't say they are leaps and bounds over anything Ford or GM has, but at least Dodge transmissions are on par now.

Bob, I have four friends with Ford Powerstroke 6.0s and three of the four have blown the heads - now two did put programmers on them and I know Ford has a TSB that the four bolt heads are not rated for any HP adders over stock. Even Ford forum guys refer to the engine as the "PowerJoke".

But I'm enjoying the thread, NOBODY builds a real good vehicle in these days of "lowest bid" and "Chinese sourced components". You pick the truck you want based on your likes, dislikes, wants & needs and deal with the common issues. I knew what the deal was on the 3rd Gens when I walked on the lot to buy a new one. I knew if I wanted to skirt issues I was going to upgrade the LSD and front end components before they had a chance to fail, one reason I picked a suspension lift that replaced many of the shaky front end parts with bigger, beefier and above all GREASABLE parts.

My personal problem with Ford is how they tried every which way to avoid a warranty repair on an engine that failed with 14k miles on it. Blaming everything from a 3" body lift to an aftermarket CAT BACK exhaust to the fact I was towing all of a 2600 lb. bass boat on my engine failure. It galled me that I had to pay an attorney to write them a nasty letter before they fixed it - and then NOT to my satisfaction. Can a Dodge or GM be built with an iffy piston? Sure, and they may had tried to bend over backwards to avoid doing the right thing and repairing it under warranty too, but the fact Ford did me this way - I'm done with them. I'll buy a 'Yota before I buy a Ford...

 

I had a 2000 Intrepid with the 2.7 v6. The water pump went out right after the warrenty did. Dallas Dodge screwed it up so bad I had to get rid of it. I have had terrible problems with Ford and GM dealers as well over the years. They're all over priced and overly comlicated IMO. Hell, you lose at least 1/3 of the value when you sign the papers.
There needs to be some sort of system that doesn't let the dealers or manufactures off
the hook when a customer has a real issue, something without all the waiting an arbertration. I can understand why you feel the way you do about Ford after your experience. Thats why I feel the way I do about gm. Three GM vehicles and all three had to have the intake manifold gaskets replaced before 60k, not to mention the cheap trim and electrical problems.

 

This is just a rant...

I'd just like to add I was at the Dodge dealer service department which is also in the shop area, there was 8 lifts, 4 on each side, about 6 vehicles total, 5 rams (various models) and 1 other brand. 4 steel tables in the middle and NO tools or equipment in sight.

Very unimpressive shop.

 

No tools because they leave them in the customers vehicle's... I just took my RAM in to have my rear window replaced under warranty they left 5 screw drivers and 4 sockets and a 3/8 2" extension in my truck... Plus it took them from 8am until 530 pm to get my truck back to me. Makes me wonder why I even have warranty.

 

Did you do the responsible thing and keep them?

 

Of course I'm not driving back another 30 miles at 6pm or better yet the next day when I was on vacation. After it took them almost eight hours to pull the rear seat and replace the rear window.