1997 Dodge Ram 3500 review from North America

Fuel gauge stopped working at 35,000 miles.

Rear shocks replaced at 25, 40, and 70,000 miles.

Tierod (driver side) broke at 52,000 miles.

Transmission burned up at 75,000 miles.

Hood latch faulty. Hood flew up at 55-60 mph while driving on state route. Both the primary and secondary hood latches failed at 85,000 miles.

Brake line to rear of truck above driver side rear wheel and next to fuel tank ruptured at 96,000 miles.

I have found overall that this truck was not built to last. I don't know if it is all car companies or just Dodge, but there are minimal things that could have been done in production to save me a lot of money and headaches. First off, this truck is driven 50/50 between city and highway and in Ohio (the rust belt). The truck has the Cummins turbo diesel and I do get great mpg for a 1 ton truck (15-16 mpg).

As far as the things that could have been done in production: Dodge could have used stainless steel for the transmission lines going to and from the cooler. The one transmission line blew a leak from rusting out (the lines were galvanized steel) and when you are driving with a blown line on the highway and all your transmission fluid is spewing out under your truck... you have not a clue this is happening until it is too late and your transmission gets burned up. There is no transmission high temperature warning light. This is what happened to me while I was driving, and it was the most costly expense I've had for this truck, having the transmission rebuilt and a new torque converter installed. It could have all been avoided had another $20 or $30 been added to the cost of the vehicle to pay for stainless steel transmission lines, or at least some kind of protective coating applied to the galvanized ones used.

Next bad thing was I blew the brake line going to the rear brakes. Again, stainless steel lines or at least some kind of protective coating to prevent rust.

My customer service experience with Dodge has been poor. It seems like they don't really care about their vehicle buyers after they've dropped 30-40,000 dollars on one of their vehicles and left their car lot. The fuel sending unit has a manufacturer defect (always reads low fuel even though you may have a full tank). I contacted the dealer and Dodge and was told that my vehicle was not one of those affected, even though I was experiencing the same kind of issues. Your answer to that is that is a decision by the money grubbing bean counters. It is such a labor intensive job to drop the fuel tank and pull the sending unit and perform the fix that they, Dodge, don't want to pay the dealers to perform the task.

Overall, I expect the car or truck manufacturer to stand behind the product they sell us.