Overlander
Senior Member
- Joined
- Sep 12, 2020
- Posts
- 370
- Reaction score
- 533
- Location
- Oregon
- Ram Year
- 2021 75th Aniv Build #0006
- Engine
- 6.4 Hemi
I think you misinterpret my post. I'm fully aware that things wear out--my own body can attest to that! I also realize that vehicles are made well. My concern is that the technology in the cars/trucks can't be fixed by the average person and are dated as soon as they are sold. If my warranty runs out, and I blow a water pump. I can replace it--on the trail or at home. On the other hand, if my computer has a gremlin, I can't do anything about except rely on someone else to figure it out. Not whining here, just contemplating.
I've done a lot of wrenching in my 49 years. In fact, other than warranty service and a wheel bearing that I didn't have a press large enough to get off the shaft, I've never paid for work on my vehicle. In my experience the advent of electronics has made the process easier, not more complicated. As long as you understand the system, have a working knowledge of electrical circuitry, and some basic guidance (internet, factory manual, etc) it's usually a pretty simple repair process. Though not necessarily inexpensive, but this it the tradeoff for performance and features.
In my experience the things that have been very difficult to diagnose and fix have been purely mechanical. Driveline vibrations, for example. Is it tire, wheel bearing, u-joint? Or is it the worn out front differential mount that took you a year to figure out? Similarly, a timing chain or lifter is much more difficult and time consuming to fix than a bad BCM.
So my perception is twofold: a) the electronics themselves are not necessarily harder to repair or diagnose (or less reliable for that matter) and b) while I don't believe that Ram is necessarily at the top of the reliability index, I also don't perceive them to be a bad or problematic brand.
Continuing down this rabbit hole a bit further, I think the real problem in reliability these days is emissions/fuel economy and not electronics per se. Take for example the disaster that has become the diesel particulate filter. This took an extremely reliable and simple system and made it fragile. Or the move to small displacement high pressure turbos. They work well when new and are peppy to drive but you're simply not going to get 300k out of one like you could a large displacement mill that isn't force fed. MDS would be another good example of complicating things with very marginal gains yet long-term durability implications.
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