Ram 1500 suddenly breaks at speed, down shifts?

Hello everyone,

I own 2013 ram 1500 crew cab, 6 speed, 5.7... Today while driving around 75 mph on a high way my truck felt like it shifted from 6th to 2nd or 1st gear. The front end dove hard and i got a chance to hit the breaks. All of this took a split second. Then i was able to drive the truck normaly... it probably slew down just 15 mph from 75 during all this, but it was vilent dive of the front end. I used the transmission shift to describe the feeling I felt while driving, honestly don't think it was a transmission because the truck never got out of 6 gear. This is the second time i experienced such sudden jerk down in power in the past two years... I couldn't find anything on forums that would explain anything like that. No codes came up etc...

There is no strange noises in the engine that would signal maybe sudden stop of the engine and restart at a split second, if that is even possible... it felt as if i hit the breaks really hard, really fast just for a split second. All my breaks were done about 10k miles ago...

If any one experienced anything like this please chime in, it felt dangerous.

Thank you

First WELCOME to the group !!!

I had something similar happens a few times as well on my 2015 SLT 845RE transmission!
RPM went up to 4K plus sort of like a down shift or dropping into passing gear ? Weird,, No codes and shop could not find anything wrong ! Happen about 3 times in the past 2 years ! Maybe not exactly the same as your but sounds close ! SO still do not know what happened and so far has not happened again Yet :O
If you find out please update Thanks

Thank you,

I am always on here reading things, but never had an issue that i couldn't find an answer to... I would like to get to the bottom of this, because if this sudden drop in power continued for longer time than a split second, it felt like it could have been a major problem, could have cause an accident... i will update if i find something. I will look into MDS issues even though my MDS was never a problem, don't even know if it is on or off if not that light... will see, thank you for your reply...

TPetryshyn said:

Thank you,

I am always on here reading things, but never had an issue that i couldn't find an answer to... I would like to get to the bottom of this, because if this sudden drop in power continued for longer time than a split second, it felt like it could have been a major problem, could have cause an accident... i will update if i find something. I will look into MDS issues even though my MDS was never a problem, don't even know if it is on or off if not that light... will see, thank you for your reply...

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I DO NOT have MDS ! I have the Pentastar V 6 ! With 8 Speed Transmission
Mine was sort of like a big down shift and RPMS goes up truck slows down, Very strange !

Interesting... i didn't have rpms go up, it is so quick and no rpm revs was observed... man, crazy...

Maybe get a dashcam and if the problem happens again (knock on wood) you can get it on tape. Good luck and hope it doesnt happen again


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How many miles on your truck?

Maybe the ABS activated due to a rusting tone wheel? He is in jersey...

The truck got 110 miles, but it is my daily driver.

The Abs idea sounds very promissing, first time it happened it felt like abs was catching, this time not so much but i can see it being an issue... i never thought that abs can activate on its own to break.

Will look into it... thank you

TPetryshyn said:

Interesting... i didn't have rpms go up, it is so quick and no rpm revs was observed... man, crazy...

Click to expand...

Hi @TPetryshyn - If at any point you decide to address this with your local Ram dealer, please know that our team is just a private message away and we are more than happy to escalate a case on your behalf so that you have the additional support of a specialist for that process.

Mark
RamCares

Did you notice any erratic behavior of the speedometer? I had a 4 Runner do this a long time ago, and it was the speed sensor getting flaky, which caused the transmission to react to an erroneous speed reading.

Hi,
No issues with speedometer or techometer ever... It is simple as this, driving on the high way, all of a sudden it feels like i slammed on the breaks for a split second, the front end dives downs, and then let's go... butbat high speeds it is a bit nerve wrecking... no rpms revs... no stalling, etc... that is why i am going to look into abs tone wheel see maybe that is out of sorts... i never had an abs light on therefore I don't think it is a sensor, but the tone wheel... if that theory goes bust, i don't know... i will update this when i check the tone rings in the ABS system...
Thanks everyone for chiming in...

TPetryshyn said:

Hi,
No issues with speedometer or techometer ever... It is simple as this, driving on the high way, all of a sudden it feels like i slammed on the breaks for a split second, the front end dives downs, and then let's go... butbat high speeds it is a bit nerve wrecking... no rpms revs... no stalling, etc... that is why i am going to look into abs tone wheel see maybe that is out of sorts... i never had an abs light on therefore I don't think it is a sensor, but the tone wheel... if that theory goes bust, i don't know... i will update this when i check the tone rings in the ABS system...
Thanks everyone for chiming in...

Click to expand...

This randomly popped up into my feed, but, it sounds like torque management.


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