2014 Ram 1500 8spd failure while towing

Hairy Fufton said:

I think there is an issue in the torque converter related to the solenoid that locks out the torque converter in 8th gear. I am getting excessive heat in the transmission without any load or towing and driving on flat ground. The truck is at the 3rd dealer right now. The previous dealers said to me and I quote, "no code, too bad for you! We wont do anything!"

When I get on the interstate, the transmission temperature will stop at 192 for about 5 minutes, then climb to around 245 in about 15 minutes. As soon as i get off the interstate on side roads, temp drops to 190 and doesn't budge, until i get back on the interstate, then its back to 245!

My fuel mileage has dropped from 24 mpg on the interstate to 16 mpg.

Tell that to the dealer and they say "WOW, never seen that before" or "are you getting an engine code? NO? Awe, that's too bad"

I have deleted the shutters and it hasn't changed the cooling.

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Hi Hairy,

I'm sorry to hear about your experience. Has your dealership offered to go on a test drive or look in to the mileage issue for you?

Kori
Ram Social Care Specialist

Keep bringing it back, lemon law it or just drive it thru showroom window lol

If I remember correctly, the 8 speeds do run hotter than what I'm used to with transmission.

Yes 280* is crazy hot and something is wrong but I believe 200-220* is normal for the 8 speed.

Like mentioned before I'd hook up a trailer of max weight capacity for my truck and drive in circles close by a dealer. Take do some runs on the highway till the transmission blew up. I'd than go to dealer and say transmission blew up. Too bad for you!


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Addicted2fishing said:

Like mentioned before I'd hook up a trailer of max weight capacity for my truck and drive in circles close by a dealer. Take do some runs on the highway till the transmission blew up. I'd than go to dealer and say transmission blew up. Too bad for you!


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I'm just going to keep it and wait for it to fail again, which most likely will happen while towing my boat. It's obvious to me that FCA doesn't care, and I don't have the time to be playing dealership games with appointments and dropping it off with no rental, etc..only to have them tell me it "operates as intended". I have 49,000 miles left on my factory powertrain warranty, once it's up i'll be selling or trading for a truck of another brand.

If it makes you feel any better I have had about the same luck with ford. If it's running that hot I'm surprised they won't warranty that.

FYI, my '16 8 speed with 3.92 gears runs about 200 degrees Fahrenheit on the freeway completely unloaded, you're operating at a normal temperature.

Lol......^^

OP, your experience is somewhat similar to what I experienced with the 66rfe in my 6.4 Hemi. My valve body blew apart but I wasn't towing at all. The tranny continues to shudder at various times (I have a hard time demonstrating this since it's random and somewhat infrequent) and has a VERY harsh 2-1 downshift (I can easily demonstrate this) and my dealer has been of zero help.

I have a lifetime warranty and am just living with the marginal operation for now. Honestly, my biggest fear is being stranded out of town somewhere with my family. I guess this is what we get for buying a new truck

After 3 hours sitting in service I was told the mechanic "didn't want to take the time" to go with me and show him the problem. The kid that took the truck in couldn't show the mechanic what I showed him numerous times and is VERY easy to replicate.

Anyway, if not for my lifetime warranty I'd almost certainly get rid of my truck. But you still do have a lot of warranty left so I'd let some time pass while doing some research, and letting the whole episode sink in. As for the warranty thing, it's been my experience personally and from reading this board that if your truck moves and isn't on fire all is well according to the powers that be at Ram. Just don't forget that "Ram Cares"

It took me a year and a half, 20,000 miles, and 5 trips to the dealer with a total of over 60 days without my truck to get a new engine.

Dmopar74 said:

It took me a year and a half, 20,000 miles, and 5 trips to the dealer with a total of over 60 days without my truck to get a new engine.

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Is that all? Too bad there is no real accountability for some of these dealerships. Especially if they're a high volume dealer the service I find is lacking and customer service is non existent. But they get away with a lot due to volume. I experienced this with GM. My buddy just went through ****y experience with ford.




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UPDATE:
I opened another case with Ram Cares a couple weeks ago and scheduled an appointment with another dealer. I dropped the truck off Tuesday morning, I provided the service advisor with about a dozen pictures of the instrument cluster showing trans temps anywhere from 210-237* (the 237 wasn't even towing) along with the odometer.

The dealership couldn't duplicate the problem, they noted that on their three test drives (totaling about 30 miles among all 3) it never got above mid 190s and shifted normal. I picked up the truck, the service advisor told me "well, you have 2 years and 4x,*** miles left on the warranty, with the temps it's hitting for you I'd say its a good bet it'll fail before 100,000 miles", I just mentioned that I bet it will too, and that I don't want to be stranded again with my family while towing my boat. By the end of my trip home from the dealer (19 miles all highway) it was at 212* and doing the slip---bang thing again into 4th. I followed up with Ram Cares, the representative is going to see if they can open a "star" case and further investigate it, or extended the warranty on the transmission (which was my suggestion if Chrysler feels confident that the trans is reliable and A-OK).. I told the guy to take as long as he needs, but that I don't want a call back if he has nothing to offer me.

Negotiating with a ****** salesman on the price of your truck is one thing---but having to negotiate to get your truck repaired, IMHO is just plain wrong -in so many ways!! Just my humble opinion----
Jay

Dunno if anything besides flushing the cooler came up before in this long thread, but it may be prudent at this point to try a different cooler.

Someone had a transmission overheat problem on another forum that a dealer and transmission experts couldn't figure out. Original transmission and replacement both would overheat at idle or somewhat loaded.

Cooler oil flow, lines, thermal flow cutoff, everything checked out. Out of frustration he swapped in an aftermarket oil cooler and now the transmission doesn't even break a sweat. Seems like a cooler can become inefficient in some way that it fools even the best techs. He spent thousands to fix a $20 part

adding an aftermarket cooler and doing a trans flush at the same time would be what I would do... I also tow about 5000# TT with my 2014 hemi 8 spd, and have never seen temps above 220... average roliing hills in OH and KY... I have about 44,000 mi now.

It would give me some peace of mind while traveling with my wife to have done the cooler with flush add-on.

LAST UPDATE - Ram doesn't stand behind their trucks

The "Ram Cares" representative called me back to let me know that he truly does understand my concerns and my issue but that Ram can't do anything for me since the dealership couldn't reproduce the problem... he then went on to ask how big the boat is that I tow. What an insult. This truck has every tow option, I pull a 21', 3,500lb pontoon boat every other weekend during the warm months.. 90% of my driving is to/from work, unloaded, just like a little family sedan.

So, do I trade it off now or wait until the end of the powertrain warranty & worry every time I tow my boat that the transmission is going to fail again?

This is the last FCA product for me, and I was a loyal customer, this is my 2nd Ram, my dad has had 3 Rams, his brother has had 5 Rams, my good friend that boat with is on his first Ram.. All of them are beside themselves that Ram has treated me like this.

Boat freak said:

The "Ram Cares" representative called me back to let me know that he truly does understand my concerns and my issue but that Ram can't do anything for me since the dealership couldn't reproduce the problem... he then went on to ask how big the boat is that I tow. What an insult. This truck has every tow option, I pull a 21', 3,500lb pontoon boat every other weekend during the warm months.. 90% of my driving is to/from work, unloaded, just like a little family sedan.

So, do I trade it off now or wait until the end of the powertrain warranty & worry every time I tow my boat that the transmission is going to fail again?

This is the last FCA product for me, and I was a loyal customer, this is my 2nd Ram, my dad has had 3 Rams, his brother has had 5 Rams, my good friend that boat with is on his first Ram.. All of them are beside themselves that Ram has treated me like this.

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Just do a bunch of hard neutral drops and bring it in to the stealership with it dragging on the pavement and say now you can duplicate.

Boat freak said:

The "Ram Cares" representative called me back to let me know that he truly does understand my concerns and my issue but that Ram can't do anything for me since the dealership couldn't reproduce the problem... he then went on to ask how big the boat is that I tow. What an insult. This truck has every tow option, I pull a 21', 3,500lb pontoon boat every other weekend during the warm months.. 90% of my driving is to/from work, unloaded, just like a little family sedan.

So, do I trade it off now or wait until the end of the powertrain warranty & worry every time I tow my boat that the transmission is going to fail again?

This is the last FCA product for me, and I was a loyal customer, this is my 2nd Ram, my dad has had 3 Rams, his brother has had 5 Rams, my good friend that boat with is on his first Ram.. All of them are beside themselves that Ram has treated me like this.

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If you havent already, request a ride along with a Tech.. Since you see it,and they don't then it should be a pretty easy diagnosis once they see what its actually doing. This is my next course of action with one of my issues and the service manager already agreed do it, I just got to get the time to get in there and do it.

ronheater70 said:

If you havent already, request a ride along with a Tech.. Since you see it,and they don't then it should be a pretty easy diagnosis once they see what its actually doing. This is my next course of action with one of my issues and the service manager already agreed do it, I just got to get the time to get in there and do it.

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Unfortunately I don't think that'd help much here. The mechanic actually told me that Chrysler only allows dealerships to either replace the valve body for shifting issues or replace the entire transmission if the fluid is burnt. He and I both agreed that we think there's something wrong with the heat exchanger box on the side of the transmission that's causing the heat issues, but he can't do anything about it.