No luck truck

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J

james31

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Well I did it I purchased a new 2014 ram 2500 crew cab long box. Paid a good chunk of change for it. Ordered it special in may picked it up in June. Drove it 8000km and nothing but problems. Every thing from the Jake brake activating under load, to the transmission acting up, and no power I mean nun. Took it to the dealer I bought it from and they changed the computer and it worked well for about 500km, then the problems started again. In short I had 19 problems before the computer swap know I have 10 and that does not include the chrome flaking rims and grill that I am waiting to be replaced.

Just a rant
 
Well, for WIW, I bought a new Ram with the 3.6 in January. I only have about 5500 miles on it with about 2000 of it on trips while towing one of my cars, and another 1600 mile trip not towing, and I haven't had any problems so far. But that does suck to have that many problems just after getting a new truck. I hope they get it fixed for you.
 
mopar head said:
Where are these trucks built?
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1 plant near detroit (Warren truck) and two in mexico (Mexico City and Saltillo).


They closed and leveled the St. Louis truck plant after the gov bailed them out with our tax money. (Nice of them to take our tax money and close the U.S. plant instead of a mexico one - I thought that the money was supposed to save AMERICAN jobs)....
 
Ford has moved it's Mexican truck operations back to Louisville Kentucky I here they worked out a deal with UAW to bring the jobs back to the US

Brian
 
once they can get rid of UAW all of the auto industry problems in the states will be solved
 
It should be criminal for manufacturers to charge you 50K for the junk they are selling now days. Everyone needs to learn to turn wrenches and keep driving the old stuff.
 
Chuckman said:
It should be criminal for manufacturers to charge you 50K for the junk they are selling now days. Everyone needs to learn to turn wrenches and keep driving the old stuff.
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Can you imagine what that would do to this already crummy economy? #-o
 
Frankie said:
Can you imagine what that would do to this already crummy economy? #-o
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So are you suggesting everyone buy overpriced crap, just for the good of the economy?
I hear about people in my area everyday with new trucks with transmission and engine problems. A friends F350 Powerstroke dropped the tranny at 15,000 miles. The tires were faulty from the factory, and had to be replaced, the windshield wiper motor went, and the latest thing was a problem with the AC, all at less than 25,000 miles.


I know man that traded his log skidder for a new John Deere skidder, and two months later traded the new skidder for two used ones. The new one was breaking down three times a week, if he could get the dealer there to fix it that fast.

If people just accept this and keep buying, it will only get worse.

The trucks built in the 90's were far superior to the stuff made today, there is no excuse for what they are producing
 
shredxcam said:
once they can get rid of UAW all of the auto industry problems in the states will be solved
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No, if you get rid of the UAW, the management will walk all over the union workers worse than what they do today.... :wack:


Some of the jobs that they have the Mexicans doing are not "legal" in the US due to safety standards.


The Mexican plants are paid so low, that an armored truck with armed guards comes to pay all of the workers in CASH for their weekly pay at the Mexico City plant. (or should I say "weakly pay")...
 
Chuckman said:
So are you suggesting everyone buy overpriced crap, just for the good of the economy?
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I read it as being more towards all the laid off dealership techs if everyone learned to work on his or her own s***. Aftermarket shops would be affected, too, if everyone learned to twist his or her own wrenches. That's a lot of mechanics out of work.

Okay, I'm sure there would still be a need for specialized shops who have the equipment, like alignment racks, wheel clamps, tire balancers, but it would spell the end of suspension, brake, exhaust shops.

It would also kill warranties. The factories only approve warranty claims from factory certified techs (with exceptions... I used to get reimbursed on warranty claims on occasion when I had my shop... an issue found, the dealership wouldn't back it up, I'd repair the problem and put in a claim myself. Usually the check was in the mail in less than a month), but if you had a million buyers all putting in warranty claims on his or her own, the factory would simply do away with warranties as it would be a major pain in the *** to keep track of them all.
 
grassy said:
Mexico.....
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krazykuda said:
1 plant near detroit (Warren truck) and two in mexico (Mexico City and Saltillo).


They closed and leveled the St. Louis truck plant after the gov bailed them out with our tax money. (Nice of them to take our tax money and close the U.S. plant instead of a mexico one - I thought that the money was supposed to save AMERICAN jobs)....
Click to expand...
Then it should be dropped back off at the factory, say, from about 30,000 ft.
 
Chuckman said:
So are you suggesting everyone buy overpriced crap, just for the good of the economy?
Click to expand...

How did you even come up with that? :roll: Geez!

Do you REALLY think that buying 20 year old cars and trucks is the ansswer to the problem? Really? Well, No. It isn't, and it will never be the answer, either.

Putting manufacturers out of business, especially auto manufactures, because you believe that new cars and trucks aren't as reliable as cars built 20 years ago, is actually quite ridiculous.

Let's look your idea, take it literally, and consider the possibilities for a moment, though... OK?



How many UAW workers would become unemployed?
How many non-union workers (management, supervision, clerical, maintenance)
How many new car dealer employees at all levels?
How many parts manufacturer employees at all levels?
paint manufacturer employees,
Glass, plastics, foam cushions, electronics, tires, employees?
Steel manufacturing
How about transport and truck drivers?
Freight train companies?
What about cottage industries? Grocers, gas stations, clothes stores, restaurants, hardware stores, bars, clubs, and any other retail establishment that would lose the business of all those unemployed auto workers?
How about the resulting glut of foreclosed houses, and unaffordable apartments?
The losses of tax revenues and the increased costs of unemployment insurance?

There is a lot more to the auto industry in this country than your opinion of new cars?

Personally, I've had only 2 major problems with new cars, and on average, I've purchased a new car or truck about every 3 years since the mid 1970's.

I had an issue with a 1981 Olds that was chronic, and with a 2012 Durango, that was returned under the Lemon Law, with less than 1000 miles on it.
That's real world, and that's not so bad.

I hear about people in my area everyday with new trucks with transmission and engine problems. A friends F350 Powerstroke dropped the tranny at 15,000 miles. The tires were faulty from the factory, and had to be replaced, the windshield wiper motor went, and the latest thing was a problem with the AC, all at less than 25,000 miles.
Click to expand...

I know man that traded his log skidder for a new John Deere skidder, and two months later traded the new skidder for two used ones. The new one was breaking down three times a week, if he could get the dealer there to fix it that fast.

If people just accept this and keep buying, it will only get worse.[/quote]

...and how many of that same vehicle were built that did not have those issues?

The trucks built in the 90's were far superior to the stuff made today, there is no excuse for what they are producing
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I disagree. I had a 92 Dodge pick up, and a 96 Dodge van, and both had more issues than anything I've owned since 2000, except for a 2012 Durango, which I returned under the Lemon law with less than 1000 miles on it..

In fact, I presently have a 2000 Chevy pick up ( purchased new) with over a quarter million miles on it, and it worked pretty hard. It's still used daily, and the engine has never once been opened.

I have a 2008 GMC with 120K miles on it, no problems.

A 2007 Ram 2500 Diesel 380K miles, no issues at all.

A 2010 Ram 3500 Diesel, 210K miles, again no issue.

I think since we only hear about the bad things that happen, which are the exceptions rather than the rules, we tend to over react.

Can things get better? Of course. But, to intimate that the vehicles being produced today are inferior, because we only read about the bad ones, is a little over the top.
 
So, if you are Canadian and buy in the US, are you covered by the American lemon
law ?

Canadian lawmakers are too woosy (maybe scare the whole auto insustry out of Canada) to bring in lemon laws..they would rather see Canadians screwed..
 
Frankie said:
I think since we only hear about the bad things that happen, which are the exceptions rather than the rules, we tend to over react.

Can things get better? Of course. But, to intimate that the vehicles being produced today are inferior, because we only read about the bad ones, is a little over the top.
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I worked in the auto industry for over 16 years. I've seen first hand how they do things. some of which, I'm not supposed to talk about.


The american auto industry built and sold crappy quality for many years. None of them did a thing about it until the Japanese came in here and started to threaten their market by doing it better. We were at their mercy,and they took advantage of it.

We (Americans) invented Statistical Process Control, but didn't implement it. The Japanese did, and started kicking our ***. Now they own the top spots for sales and quality by using one of our techniques that we invented, but did not use.


Hands down, the American engineers can out design the Japanese engineers. The Japanese are more disciplined in manufacturing.


I was also recruited to be a part of a quality drive. We were placed in the assembly plants to be the go betweens between manufacturing and the design group. We had a team of 17 - 20 engineers to cover every aspect of the vehicle. Our goal was to resolve long term manufacturing issues that the manufacturing and design engineers were too busy to address.

We pulled our warranty numbers every week when they were updated and picked our top offenders, and went after them. We then went out and took measurements and quantified the problem. Then made some changes to the process or parts and ran small controlled batch runs to test if our theories were correct. Then upon successful trial run, we wrote the change notices to change the parts and/or process and included the design engineers in our notice. After the new change came into production, we tracked the warranty data and had to give reports on our progress every other week in a weekly top management meeting. They grilled us. Many times we were made very uncomfortable in those meetings if we weren't making the progress that they wanted. We were under the gun with the plant manager and his team, and the executive managers from the "main office" would also come in for a visit. Sometimes our plant manager got chewed out for lack of progress in those meetings.

Once we did successfully implement the changes and help the assembly plant with their problems, they started to accept us more and were more cooperative. We would then pick the next top hitter on our quality list and go after that. We brought our J.D. Powers numbers down from 138 to 89 on a model that was being phased out. We also supported the launch of the new model, going to the design center during the test builds and watching how they fit together and learning from the design engineers how the new designs and processes were going to work. We then followed the first ones down the lines and showed the operators the new changes. We had our new model warranty numbers at the same level that we built out the old model within three months of launch. A very hard goal to obtain.

After that assignment, I transferred to the engine plant, as I love engines. I was in the same quality position that I was before. After about two years they "merged" us in with the plant engineers, and we just became free engineers to the plant and our main focus was running the plant day to day, instead of concentrating on quality.

A few years later, times were getting tough, and they started to make cuts. I saw the Quality Manager bend and fold to the pressures from his superiors instead of fight for quality. There was a group of quality engineers at the plant who were responsible to approve all gauges and perform capability studies on each station/gauge. We worked with them to check and verify our processes. He had about 8 - 10 day shift engineers, and 2 night shift engineers. He skipped a few meetings and they cut him to only 1 engineer on each shift for that department. Not nearly enough to perform the work that needed to be done.

I also saw him bend and fold to pressure to ship known bad engines when we were getting tight with the assembly plants. We would have about 3000 - 5000 engines on hold because we suspected that there were maybe about 150 - 300 engines with "suspect parts" on them. Instead of finishing the sort to find the bad ones, he would release them and say, "I'll take my hits in warranty, instead to have to inspect some known good engines to find a few bad ones...." That used to dig at me. I would sometimes voice my opinion of that, and was seen as a trouble maker sometimes. However, when I solved their $750,000 per year piston pinning scrap problem, and other high hitting problems, they liked me....

I fought for the customer. I put myself in their shoes and wanted to put out the best quality that we could. I used to explain to them, if you build a good quality vehicle that lasts over 100,000 miles where your customer only has to take it back to the dealer for regular maintenance, then you will build a loyal customer base that will keep coming back and buying more of our cars. If you sell them problem cars, then they will go to our competition, take their friends and family with them and pass along the horror stories. You will then have a hard time getting that customer back. I wanted to keep the loyal customers coming back, like my father who bought that companies' products since '62. I wanted to make him proud and keep loyal customers like him.

They could build better quality if they wanted. When the times get tough, they start letting the quality people go as they aren't seen as "productive" to build the product. They just look at the current sales and profit numbers and try to "satisfy the shareholders" to drive their business decisions. Unfortunately doing that can compromise quality and alienate the customers to hurt future business.... That is a big reason that you get some of these poor quality vehicles... Business as usual....


I do agree that the economy depends on the automotive market. It goes down many levels from the OEM, the suppliers, and their suppliers, etc. If the automotive companies go under, our economy will go with it.

I've worked first hand with the operators. Most of them also want to build the best product that they can. They are trained/encouraged to alert management if they see something different as they assemble the parts. When they do question it, and it is a problem, but management decides to run with it instead of fix it, it sends the wrong message to the operators like they don't care. Then the operators say, "why should I care if they don't?" If you let the operators do their jobs like they are supposed to, and not let management get in the way, you would get better quality than what the managers are producing today. It's how they manage that is the problem more than the operators. Sure there are a few bad apples, but most of the operators know that they have to do a good job and that their future depends on it.
 
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