My wife's Ram is a rusted pile and I know what it's like to deal with rusted on components now...we bought her 2014 9 months or so ago when we moved from Colorado to Kentucky - Colorado got way too expensive and crowded and we didn't like how far one way politically it was leaning lol. Day before we moved she needed a new to us vehicle, so we went to looking hard. 1 Ford F150 crapped it's Turbopants out as we were driving it, one had an engine knock on start before we could even drive it, and the other one wouldn't even start. Moved over to ol' reliable Mopar! She test drove her 2014 Ram 1500 and loved the Pentastar, I saw some rust under it, but what I saw was salt rust on the parts, and some surface on the frame I could take care of. Fast Forward - in the rush to move, 3 weeks later we get to Kentucky after packing up and moving in, and I notice rocker panel rust - said SON OF A how did I miss that... Not even the best part. We never use our parking brakes, never needed to - well one of our friends borrowed it with us, and used the parking brakes....next day wife had an awful squeeling in the rear driver side. Thought it was a rock stuck in the dust shield riding the rotor, took tire off, could replicate but no rock! Removed caliper (which some @$$hat put a crapload of loctite on the bolts and had to break out the big boy toys to get it) - knock off the rotor and found the parking brake assembly was falling to pieces, and ground off some of the ABS tone ring teeth. Also noticed how much rust was actually on the axle and parts down there. I'm so angry they even sold that - no one to blame myself in theory for not pushing the 1 year newer hemi that had zero rust with her, she was just trying to keep our payments low- she also wanted a black v6 one to boot not a silver leather loaded hemi. Mechanically it's a really solid and runs really nice (knock on wood) - but I told her I'm removing the parking brake, I am not sinking anymore money into it until I decide how far we want to go - either I have to start knocking out parts on it, or we ride it until we can dump it on a trade
. Typical scenario of I ran a KBB and found we owe more than it's worth of course after only 10 payments so far lol.
Even better, when I installed her remote start, I pulled the dash panel off, and someone had one on prior, and just ripped it out and put some cheap wire crimps in there to splice the wires back together, but the crimps just fell out as soon as the trim piece came off, exposing the wires. I said what the hell do I have to do to get a decent vehicle around here...I mean if you install a remote start you send it WITH the vehicle - if that's a make it or break it piece at $75 for someone, they probably shouldn't be financing a newer vehicle lol. That was a fire hazard waiting to happen.
In all - she's happy that dad taught me to a fairly competent DIY individual. I'm good at figuring stuff out - but can't really help others much without laying hands on it and running through my own scenarios lol. But I am always happy to try to help someone out. I can competently replace an entire axle assembly - the problem is I shouldn't have to on something recently bought lol
I can paint over a rocker panel surface rust issue, who cares - but I'm worried once I lightly sand it to give it a quick coat of how deep it may actually go now. It's no wonder people are hating cars and pushing trades every 3 and 5 years to find something new to stay ahead of potential repair curves. lol.
