4th Gen Ram Tech 2009 - 2018 Rams and the 2019 Ram Classic: This section is for TECHNICAL discussions only, that involve the 2009 - 2018 Rams and the 2019 Ram Classic. For any non-tech discussions, please direct your attention to the "General discussion/NON-tech" sub sections.

Shifter Boot

Thread Tools
 
Search this Thread
 
  #1  
Old 08-06-2015, 12:38 PM
John Valdes's Avatar
John Valdes
John Valdes is offline
Veteran
Thread Starter
Join Date: Mar 2009
Posts: 289
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
Default Shifter Boot

I drive a 2009 Big Horn. With column shifter. 43,000 miles.

The shifter boot on the column as already worn out and falling apart.
I had the dealer look at it and he said my warranty (extended) would not cover it.
I think its a defect.
Regular wear and tear? What if this was the floor boot for a manual tranny? They out last the car or truck in most instances.
Just one more item to add to the list of problems with this vehicle.
No big problems, but small stuff.

They want to replace the whole shift mechanism at around $60. It would seem the boot would come right off and it could be replaced?
I am asking?

I also have some small issues like the chrome cap on the shift **** peeling off, which would be corrected if I let them replace the whole shifter arm.
Does not seem right nor fair?
Opinions? Suggestions? TIA.....
 
  #2  
Old 08-06-2015, 01:01 PM
moze229's Avatar
moze229
moze229 is offline
Rookie
Join Date: Jun 2009
Posts: 81
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
Default

If it bothers you, $60 doesn't seem like a big deal. Especially when you're talking about dealer work. I'd just let them do it. I'm like you. It's the little things that really speak up about quality and it's those little things that drive me crazy.

I feel you though. You shouldn't even be messing with anything like that at this point. I just sold my 2001 yesterday and all of the parts and pieces to the steering column were all in tact and looked good. It had the famous dash board crack though. I guess we can't have everything.
 
  #3  
Old 08-06-2015, 01:17 PM
John Valdes's Avatar
John Valdes
John Valdes is offline
Veteran
Thread Starter
Join Date: Mar 2009
Posts: 289
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
Default

Originally Posted by moze229
If it bothers you, $60 doesn't seem like a big deal. Especially when you're talking about dealer work. I'd just let them do it. I'm like you. It's the little things that really speak up about quality and it's those little things that drive me crazy.

I feel you though. You shouldn't even be messing with anything like that at this point. I just sold my 2001 yesterday and all of the parts and pieces to the steering column were all in tact and looked good. It had the famous dash board crack though. I guess we can't have everything.
$60 was for the arm. Did not include labor.
They also wanted $25 for the chrome cap on the end of the arm. Most likely a 25 cent part. I could care less about it being chrome though. Should come with a black plastic cap I guess?

Yep lots of little stuff.
The rattle the comes from the nerf bars is real irritating. Took me a long time to figure out where that was coming from. Had i not bumped the bars real hard with my foot, I would still be hunting for it. Drives me nuts!
I am thinking about some rubber washers or some fix like that.
Maybe I can buy a combo washer/bushing?

I am not real happy with this truck. My dealer really sucks big time. They don't ever return calls and if you bring up a bulletin like I did last winter about the manifold bolts. They have ignored me completely.
The only positive thing I can mention is the oil change program. Great price for 4 oil and filter changes.
When I was called about buying another Dodge, I told the salesman to take me off the list as I may never buy another Dodge.
 

Last edited by John Valdes; 08-06-2015 at 01:19 PM.
  #4  
Old 08-06-2015, 01:23 PM
oldjeep's Avatar
oldjeep
oldjeep is offline
Champion
Join Date: May 2009
Location: MN
Posts: 3,497
Likes: 0
Received 1 Like on 1 Post
Default

The chrome started peeling off my cap a long time ago, removed it after I got sliced by a piece of it one day. Never bothered replacing it, but it is interesting that the cap is available separately now - at the time to get one you had to buy the whole lever. There is a black cap available - ST trucks supposedly had it. Haven't had any issues with the shifter boot so far.


Mine has 118K on it and overall has had few issues, although recently the keyless entry stopped working and it seems like it is not the remotes unless both of them are bad.
 
  #5  
Old 08-08-2015, 09:51 AM
NoMoreGMsForMe's Avatar
NoMoreGMsForMe
NoMoreGMsForMe is offline
Professional
Join Date: Nov 2011
Location: Courtice Ontario Canada.
Posts: 162
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
Default

Check out a auto wrecker yard there must be 09s in them, get the part you need.
 
  #6  
Old 08-08-2015, 10:14 AM
HammerZ71's Avatar
HammerZ71
HammerZ71 is offline
Administrator
Dodge Forum Administrator
Join Date: Jul 2007
Location: South Georgia/East Florida
Posts: 24,686
Likes: 0
Received 20 Likes on 19 Posts
Default

You should have seen how bad the leather Laramie steering wheels were in the 3rd Gens. Mine didn't last a year without starting to degrade and flake off from contact with sweaty hands. I put a cover on it and all was good with the world. What I din't realize until well after the fact is that dealers would replace right up until the end of the 3/36 bumper to bumper.

At 5+ years old, it's a boot. Replace it...
 
  #7  
Old 08-14-2015, 01:28 PM
John Valdes's Avatar
John Valdes
John Valdes is offline
Veteran
Thread Starter
Join Date: Mar 2009
Posts: 289
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
Default

Originally Posted by NoMoreGMsForMe
Check out a auto wrecker yard there must be 09s in them, get the part you need.
I bet I could get it from a bone yard.
But a truck as new as this is and only 44,000 miles. This shifter boot should outlast the truck.
They last on manual stick shifters that get used 100's of 1000's of times more.
Seems a factory defect should warrant a free replacement!
 
  #8  
Old 08-14-2015, 05:51 PM
dwaldmann's Avatar
dwaldmann
dwaldmann is offline
Professional
Join Date: Dec 2014
Posts: 137
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
Default

Originally Posted by John Valdes
They last on manual stick shifters that get used 100's of 1000's of times more.
They USED to last millions of moves. When's the last time they made a manual trans truck? Prolly if they still made them the new ones would start breaking down early too.

The good thing about a warranty is that you (hopefully) get things fixed for "free" within the time period. The bad thing is that they seem to design things to last only as long as the warranty. Ever hear the poem called "The Wonderful One Hoss Shay"?

Originally Posted by Oliver Wendell Holmes

Have you heard of the wonderful one-hoss shay,
That was built in such a logical way
It ran a hundred years to a day,
And then of a sudden it — ah, but stay,
I’ll tell you what happened without delay,
Scaring the parson into fits,
Frightening people out of their wits, —
Have you ever heard of that, I say?

Seventeen hundred and fifty-five.
Georgius Secundus was then alive, —
Snuffy old drone from the German hive.
That was the year when Lisbon-town
Saw the earth open and gulp her down,
And Braddock’s army was done so brown,
Left without a scalp to its crown.
It was on that terrible Earthquake-day
That the Deacon finished the one-hoss shay.

Now in building of shaises, I tell you what,
There is always a weakest spot, —
In hub, tire, felloe, in spring or thill,
In pannel or crossbar, or floor, or sill,
In screw, bolt, throughbrace, — lurking still,
Find it somewhere you must and will, —
Above or below, or within or without, —
And that’s the reason, beyond a doubt,
That a chaise breaks down, but doesn’t wear out.

But the Deacon swore (as deacons do,
With an "I dew vum," or an "I tell yeou")
He would build one shay to beat the taown
‘n’ the keounty ‘n’ all the kentry raoun';
It should be so built that it couldn’ break daown:
"Fer," said the Deacon, "’t’s mighty plain
Thut the weakes’ place mus’ stan’ the strain;
‘n’ the way t’ fix it, uz I maintain, is only jest
‘T’ make that place uz strong uz the rest."

So the Deacon inquired of the village folk
Where he could find the strongest oak,
That couldn’t be split nor bent nor broke, —
That was for spokes and floor and sills;
He sent for lancewood to make the thills;
The crossbars were ash, from the the straightest trees
The pannels of whitewood, that cuts like cheese,
But lasts like iron for things like these;

The hubs of logs from the "Settler’s ellum," —
Last of its timber, — they couldn’t sell ’em,
Never no axe had seen their chips,
And the wedges flew from between their lips,
Their blunt ends frizzled like celery-tips;
Step and prop-iron, bolt and screw,
Spring, tire, axle, and linchpin too,
Steel of the finest, bright and blue;
Throughbrace bison-skin, thick and wide;
Boot, top, dasher, from tough old hide
Found in the pit when the tanner died.
That was the way he "put her through,"
"There!" said the Deacon, "naow she’ll dew!"

Do! I tell you, I rather guess
She was a wonder, and nothing less!
Colts grew horses, beards turned gray,
Deacon and deaconess dropped away,
Children and grandchildren — where were they?
But there stood the stout old one-hoss shay
As fresh as on Lisbon-earthquake-day!

EIGHTEEN HUNDRED; — it came and found
The Deacon’s masterpiece strong and sound.
Eighteen hindred increased by ten; —
"Hahnsum kerridge" they called it then.
Eighteen hundred and twenty came; —
Running as usual; much the same.
Thirty and forty at last arive,
And then come fifty and FIFTY-FIVE.

Little of of all we value here
Wakes on the morn of its hundredth year
Without both feeling and looking queer.
In fact, there’s nothing that keeps its youth,
So far as I know, but a tree and truth.
(This is a moral that runs at large;
Take it. — You’re welcome. — No extra charge.)

FIRST OF NOVEMBER, — the Earthquake-day, —
There are traces of age in the one-hoss shay,
A general flavor of mild decay,
But nothing local, as one may say.
There couldn’t be, — for the Deacon’s art
Had made it so like in every part
That there wasn’t a chance for one to start.
For the wheels were just as strong as the thills
And the floor was just as strong as the sills,
And the panels just as strong as the floor,
And the whippletree neither less or more,
And the back-crossbar as strong as the fore,
And the spring and axle and hub encore.
And yet, as a whole, it is past a doubt
In another hour it will be worn out!

First of November, fifty-five!
This morning the parson takes a drive.
Now, small boys get out of the way!
Here comes the wonderful one-hoss shay,
Drawn by a rat-tailed, ewe-necked bay.
"Huddup!" said the parson. — Off went they.

The parson was working his Sunday’s text, —
Had got to fifthly, and stopped perplexed
At what the — Moses — was coming next.
All at once the horse stood still,
Close by the meet’n’-house on the hill.
First a shiver, and then a thrill,
Then something decidedly like a spill, —
And the parson was sitting upon a rock,
At half past nine by the meet’n’-house clock, —
Just the hour of the earthquake shock!

What do you think the parson found,
When he got up and stared around?
The poor old chaise in a heap or mound,
As if it had been to the mill and ground!
You see, of course, if you’re not a dunce,
How it went to pieces all at once, —
All at once, and nothing first, —
Just as bubbles do when they burst.

End of the wonderful one-hoss shay.
Logic is logic. That’s all I say.
My grandmother was a poet and lover of poetry, and I heard her recite this more than once.
 

Last edited by dwaldmann; 08-14-2015 at 06:18 PM.
  #9  
Old 08-18-2015, 12:41 PM
John Valdes's Avatar
John Valdes
John Valdes is offline
Veteran
Thread Starter
Join Date: Mar 2009
Posts: 289
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
Default

And to top it all off. The windshield washer fluid tank leaks all the contents immediately to the ground.

dwaldman. Thanks for the poem but TLDNR.
 
  #10  
Old 08-19-2015, 09:08 PM
dwaldmann's Avatar
dwaldmann
dwaldmann is offline
Professional
Join Date: Dec 2014
Posts: 137
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
Default

Originally Posted by John Valdes
dwaldman. Thanks for the poem but TLDNR.
Oliver Wendell Holmes is widely regarded as a literary genius. Your loss.

Oh, and the poem perfectly explains the principle behind a manufacturer's warranty (while they admit it or not), over 100 years before there was such a thing (written in 1858).
 


Quick Reply: Shifter Boot



All times are GMT -4. The time now is 08:51 AM.