The dealer called me today. Said it’s a new recall and that is what may have been the issue. They have had my truck now over three weeks. Hopefully I will get it back next week.
Ram doesn't keep a large supply of parts in stock. I used to run a manufacturing plant and what goes into getting parts for a recall is quite the performance.
They keep enough in stock to manufacture the trucks on their schedule to be built and some supply of backup parts in the event that there is a bad one on the production line or to fill dealer orders here or there. They don't anticipate a recall nor stock parts on the shelf just in case. It's expensive and would send their overhead through the roof.
So when a recall happens, they're not sending out any current stock of parts because the assumption has to be made that those may be bad as well. They have to first identify what specifically is causing the parts to fail. If it's a production line issue they have to identify it, change a process, etc...
If it's a component problem, they have to work with the manufacturer of the part to identify a solution, change their engineering drawings, go through a peer review process, and then send out a modified order to the OEM of the failed part to begin production of the new parts. The OEM has to order the material, schedule time on their production lines to manufacture a small number of the revised parts, send the new parts through a quality review and first article inspection, and once approved they can actually schedule time on the production line.
You have to remember that the production lines are probably running at max capacity and they can't shut down a line and be late on all their other parts or risk their customers going somewhere else. It can take months for all of the above to happen.
This isn't a quick process even when everything is expedited. With supply chain issues they're already behind so a lot of manufacturers are really struggling to catch back up.
