I'm having a little trouble with my '09 Ram and it's bedsides rusting so I thought I'd seek out some advice to see if anyone has been down the same road.

My '09 Ram (garage kept) with less than 40k miles has some rust bubbling up on the bedside wheel arches. I took it to a local dealer to have it examined while still under the warranty and it was approved for left and right bedsides. I was ecstatic! Really proud Dodge was standing behind their product.

This is where it all went downhill. It was approved for the bedsides in early October of '14. I called the dealer every few weeks to see if I could get scheduled in. No luck. Lots of excuses like too busy, waiting on parts, you get the picture. This went on and on until late December when the dealer told me they were no longer allowed to replace bedsides and they had to use patch panels. I was kind of bummed because it wasn't my fault it took them 3 months to schedule me in.

I opened a case with Chrysler on December 24th. Chrysler attempted to contact the service manager at the dealer to clear things up. They did tell me that the truck was still in their system as left and right bedside replacement and that the claim hadn't changed since October when it was originally approved. The bigger problem is, the service manager never returned the Chrysler rep's calls. Of course Chrysler gave me lots of excuses why the service manager might not return their calls. Holiday season, too busy, and on and on. Obviously I lost all faith in that dealer so I requested to have the repair done at a different Chrysler dealer. They told me I would have to start the warranty approval process over again at the new dealer and it should be approved again even though the rust warranty had since expired. This sounded insane because the warranty repair was already approved in their system, pictures and all. I was worried that if I tried that and my claim gets denied because the warranty period expired, I'd be SOL. Either way the rep agreed to keep the case open until we could clear things up. Chrysler closed my case in their system with no warning or reason in late January. I guess they just expect me to work it out with the dealer who won't return their call.

At this point, I'm feeling pretty defeated and out of options. Talk about a roller coaster. I went from being proud of Dodge for standing behind their product to sitting here scratching my head wondering if the problem is me. All I ask is that I can take the truck to another authorized Chrysler dealer to have the approved warranty repair preformed. Is that a reasonable request given the circumstances? Anyone else have trouble getting Dodge to honor their rust warranty?

 

My 2011 with 55,000 miles is starting to rust in the rear wheel wells. It has not worked its way to the side yet but it is where the pinch weld seem is and the seem is opening up on both sides and you can see the rust. I talked to the dealer and they took pics and told me to take to a body shop to get a quote. Well after waiting over two months to get a answer they finally told me it was not covered but I could wait a little longer to see if it gets worse. But the problem is I only have 10 months of rust warranty left. So you know what that means. They will say no till the warranty is over.

 

That sucks if they don't approve yours. Of course everyone knows Toyota is putting whole frames under trucks because of rust problems. Dodge is pretty well known for the wheel arches on the bedsides rotting out prematurely so it's time to step up to the plate and do something about it.

The thing that drives me nuts is that mine IS approved under warranty. I just can't get the work done.

 

Had mine repaired twice under warranty, the second time I gave the body shop that done the repair a blast for doing shoddy work he explained to me that he has repaired hundreds of Rams with this problem and to correct it you have to drill drain holes into the fender liner above the wheel he says water sits up there and has no place to drain from hence the problem , I asked him why he doesn't drill holes into the liner to correct the problem , his answer was this is my bread and butter , so I had the liners drilled and the body undercoated Krown Rust Control , so hopefully I won't be buttering his bread anymore. Good Luck with your situation.