Hi,

I'm currently facing an anoying problem with my 2011 RAM (HEMI, 5-speed, 4x4, Sport)

When I hit 120km there's a high frequency vibration. It feels like it comes from the rear or middle, no movement visable at the bed. Seats shake and it somehow feels like unbalanced tires, but it's neither the tires nor the wheels. Vibration stays constant from 120km upwards.

What we done so far:
- Balanced my wheels three times
- Swapped the rear drive shaft from a smooth running RAM
- Took it for a ride without front drive shaft
- Took it for a ride without CV shafts
- Checked the U joints on both driveshafts - flawless
- Front wheel bearings look like new
- Took it for a ride with new brake discs
- Swapped a wheel set from a smooth running RAM
- New rear axle shafts and bearings
- Checked everything under the truck for tightness
- We don't think it's the tranny as the problem sticks to the speed of around 120km and is independent from the used gear or engine rpm

Currently we are out of ideas, dealer says it could be the rear diff, but he wants me to collect some more ideas because he doesn't want to do an expensive rear diff swap just to give it a try.

If you lift the truck from the ground, put it in 4WD lock an let it run 120km it makes a hard to locate squeaking and rattling noise in the rear, probably coming from the diff. If you look into the diff it looks good.

Last thing he did was tightening up the play in the diff, which also didn't make the vibration disappear. Thing is, since the tightening, I can feel more slight vibrations, not annoying ones but I'm quite sensitive now...

Would loosen up the play in the diff be a solution?

Further ideas I gathered:
- pinoion angle, which i doubt, cause the truck is not lifted
- transfer case output bearing
- pinion bearing

I'm really hoping to find a solution, cause I love this truck and wanna keep it, on the other hand I more or less need to fix it when I want to sell it in the future, which could be tricky if it still vibrates...

Hopefully you guys have some fresh ideas for me

 

Set the truck on jackstands, so the suspension is actually loaded. Then run it, and see what shakes.

 

I'm a little worried to go 75 - 80 mph on jackstands as there's already lots of movement in the truck when you do this on a lift.

A friend of mine, who owns technically the same truck will team up with me at the dealership, so we can do a full rear axle swap. Hopefully we'll get some results from that.

 

That seems rather extreme when you don't know if it will solve the issue or not.

 

Yeah it is, but he will only borrow me his rear axle, swapping should be done in one hour at the shop, so it's not as extreme as it sounds.
Problem is, we have to figure out if it's really coming from the back. If my truck still vibrates with a fully operational rear axle of another truck, we can move further to the transfer case and/or transmission.
Another problem is, that there are no more official MOPAR dealerships in Europe, so my shop cannot swap new parts from their stock just for a tryout. New parts would have to be ordered and paid by the shop and me, this is why we try to find a way to figure out the problem without spending thousands of dollars...

We tried so much with no result I guess we have to take extreme measueres to get my truck running smooth again.

Still I'm looking forward for new ideas what could cause the vibration.

 

What happened to the dealers in europe????? Dodge/Chrysler are still in business, I wouldn't think they would stop selling cars in Europe.... Or did they all go to the Fiat dealerships??

 

This goes all back to 2011 when Chrysler decided to completely withdraw from the European market.
There were never all MOPAR products available in Europe, as far as I remember they officially sold the Dodge Neon, Avenger, Journey and Nitro; Chrysler Voyager, 300M and C as well as for a short time the Viper. For a very very short period of time (some months in 2010) they also officially sold the RAM 1500 over here, but only 1,5 years after the big financial crash, there weren't many customers looking for a big gas guzzling truck.
The only brand constantly being brought to Europe with the full lineup was Jeep, till today.

One year later, in 2012 they tried to sell the 300C and 200C as Lancia, wich was no big success, cause US car lovers didn't want to buy Lancias and Lancia fans didn't want to buy US cars branded as Lancias, so FCA sent Lancia to death.

Since then, the only MOPAR brand officially available in Europe is still Jeep.

Due to taxation, there's no big market in Europe for high powered cars and somehow the industry turned a lot of people into Diesel "fans", which made it difficult for US brands to sell cars over here. Then some private importers saw a chance for the RAM because in most European countries, there's a special taxation for light trucks, which make them as "cheap" as little cars concerning the yearly tax. As fuel consumption is not the number one concern for V8 lovers, RAM sales of privately imported RAMs took off at around 2012 and the companies ACE and AGT took over most of the import market, which is still not big. Considering Austria is a small country with only 8 million citizens, RAM sales last year were around 200 units.

Most of the old Chrysler/Jeep dealers stayed with Jeep and do maintenance for older Chrysler models, most of them had to add other brands to theyr portfolio to stay alive, some switched brands and some closed down.
For those still in the market, they can order all MOPAR parts via the FCA ordering lines, prices are mostly rediculous, which is why most US car drivers over here buy their parts directly in the US or at independent stores.

Long story short - there are some Chrysler dealerships left, but none of them has RAM parts in stock.

 

They did????? I must have missed that. (not like a pay a lot of attention though.....)

 

Hell yeah, there are only some US cars officially sold over here, what I have in mind it's:

- Corvette (full lineup)
- Cadillac (full lineup though you hardly see any)
- Jeep (full lineup)
- Ford (Mustang only, except Shelby GT models, other Ford models over here are European Models or modified "world models" like the Focus and the Fusion)

 

Little Update:

Did the rear axle swap from my buddies RAM today and guess what: nothing changed...
A friend of mine who works at a Jeep dealership came up with the idea that the vibrations could come from the torque converter clutch of my 545RFA tranny. Only way to find that out would be a complete swap of the torque converter. He also mentioned that a tranny flush could help, as the TC clutch is operatet by the valve body in the tranny.

I gonna let this sink in while my short term deployment till the end of december and will make a decision then.