True but you think the actual Ram dealer would have this equipment. Then when FCA got involved on the corporate level they should have made a judgement call to send the vehicle to a dealer that did, if in fact any do. My trusted neighborhood mechanic could have done the steps they took but in 5 days, not 100 plus days that the dealer took. The whole experience was a mess and rather than wait for the next electrical issue to surface, I abandoned ship and sold the truck while it was functioning as it should. It was a hard decision to make as I loved the truck. Minus the electrical issues, she ran better than any other truck I've owned. Too many folks with the same issue reported the problems resurfacing weeks later. I didn't want the headache...I wonder why there aren't technicians that specialize in just this area of can/bus that float around between the dealer repair centers?
I cannot speak for FCA, but I was a dealer tech for GM most of 2 decades and a Ford tech for 7 years over the 46 years I've been doing this. That said, I'd like to comment on a program that GM had (might still have?) called STG... Service Technology Group. This was a program of mobile tech engineers who travelled across the country to address difficult situations, such as yours. Several particularly difficult issues I'd seen over those years are burned into my memory, given the particularly difficult level of finding the solution.
One was a 1995 Chevy Lumina (had about 4,000 miles or so, and was less than a year old). This car ate 5 heater cores in very short order. The technical assistance hotline available to dealer techs had the technician test for electrolysis in the coolant, check for floating or high resistance grounds throughout the car, all to no avail. Each time the tech installed a new heater core, it would start leaking shortly afterwards.
Finally, the STG engineers flew in and descended upon this car. There were about 4 or 5 guys involved on this one. After a day or 2 of testing, they determined that the blower motor was improperly designed (by a major vendor) and was ionizing the air stream and eating the soft aluminum core from the outside. Their temporary fix was to take a piece of metal window screen and solder a piece of wire to it, attach it to the face of the heater core, and ground the other end of the wire, thus diverting the electrical charge in the airstream to ground. GM had the vendor redesign the blower motor, and issued a campaign and TSB to correct the issue.
Another one (This one REALLY impressed me) was a 1997 Pontiac Bonneville with the 3.8L Buick design motor in it. This car had a misfire and a code which illuminated the check engine light. Our drivability tech looked it over, performed tests, and determined that there must be a mechanical issue, but none presented with typical testing. So, he shipped it over to the line department for one of those techs to find out the problem, which they couldn't with technology available to us techs back then. Enter the STG engineers, and with their fancy equipment determined that the camshaft had a mis-indexed lobe. STG used a pressure transducer with an oscilloscope to find the problem. A replacement camshaft was installed, and the car was returned to the customer, repaired.
My point is, that the level of engineering skills required to determine causes of problems accurately and the ability to repair the problem correctly the first time on these highly intricate cars today FAR exceed the capacity of many skilled technicians out there today.
I possess both a high powered oscilloscope AND pressure transducers for my diagnostic work, along with many other tools in my arsenal. These pieces of sensitive equipment are extremely expensive, and require specialized training to use accurately. The cost of these tools exceed what normal employees in a dealer service department are capable of affording. The dealers are independent businessmen and typically will not invest in these tools nor will they pay to train the techs.
I recently used my scope to accurately diagnose a bad alternator on a 2006 Expedition. The alternator was putting out excessive AC ripple voltage, causing CAN/BUS issues, causing a crank, no start problem which was intermittent. The customer had been on holiday the prior summer and the original alternator failed. The customer took the vehicle to the local dealer in that town and had a genuine Ford Motorcraft alternator installed. The customer didn't want to pay me for a replacement alternator, because the bad one was (supposedly) covered by FoMoCo at any dealer, nationwide. So, he came and got the car and took it to the nearby dealer, who used a voltmeter for their diagnosis! How archaic! I know this because the dealer refused to fix it under Ford warranty, and got me in the middle of the fight! (UGH!) The dealer texted me a picture of a voltmeter with a normal DC voltage reading across the battery!
After nearly a week of bickering and the dealer digging in their heels, the customer paid these goons 145 dollars for their "diagnosis" and brought it back to me and paid me to replace the alternator.
These horror stories, like you had, are sadly all too commonplace. Look at job sites such as Glassdoor and see how low the pay offer is in this industry for techs who are supposed to function at this level. I have bigshots call me from time to time who manage dealership chains (e.g. Group 1 Automotive who own many dealerships across the country, and Sonic Automotive) wanting me to go to work for them.
Meanwhile, consumers have no idea why they can't get their vehicles properly repaired in any sort of timely fashion.