2016 Ram 1500 Sport

[Jake]

Mileage: 43,400

I haven't put a ton of miles on the truck since buying it. Between my off-road trip, trip to Germany, and a press loan or two, I've been driving other things or not driving at all. But, I've commuted in it a bit and did use it to tow to VIR a few weeks ago. General fuel economy sucks with the big ol' Hemi, it does have cylinder deactivation (from 8 to 4) and lowers itself to "Aero mode" but the Fords do better on fuel with smaller engines. No matter, I don't drive enough to truly care about MPG and the noises from the Hemi are fantastic. It scoots paired to the 3.92 axles (standard on Sport trim) and the ZF 8-speed.

Towing was very positive. It's kind of weird to hook up the trailer as the air suspension will want to compensate immediately for the tongue weight. What you do is put the truck in "Tire Jack mode" which disables the air suspension's leveling. Hook the trailer up, attach the weight distribution bars, then disable Tire Jack mode and it'll level briefly. When in Tow/Haul mode, it disables automatic highway-speed Aero ride height so it doesn't mess with the trailer.

The air suspension has proven to be very comfortable around town and doubly so when towing. A lot of the expansion joints that would cause the truck and trailer to undulate a bit were very smooth with the Ram/air ride. The transmission has the right amount of ratios to help with strong acceleration, though the downshifting-while-braking is not as aggressive as the Fords. Brakes are generally strong and it stopped fine with the trailer.

I had noticed a quirk with the transmission over the past few weeks. If it sat overnight and fluid got cold (or drained out of wherever it goes), the first shift from Park to Reverse would produce a big thump from the transmission. If I went Park to Drive immediately, no thump. Park to Drive to Reverse, no thump. I chalked it up to weird behavior, alongside a slightly-delayed first 1-2 upshift. The upshift is explained as air being purged from sitting - it doesn't slip, it just revs higher before shifting. Okay, fine. The reverse thump didn't get better so I took it in last week, to Tyson's (Koons) CJDR.

I was a little mislead by the selling dealer in Chantilly. They told me the "full warranty" was for 3 months/3,000 miles and powertrain-only CPO warranty was 7 years/100,000 miles. Turns out, much like with the Kahu GPS tracker (story here) they lied. The 3 month warranty was their own thing, the CPO warranty is actually bumper-to-bumper until 2023 or 100k. Awesome.

Anyway, the dealership said there were no codes stored for the transmission and that I shouldn't worry much about the reverse thump, unless it got more frequent or set a code.

Leaving work yesterday, the truck fumbled a 1-2 upshift really hard. Kind of stuttered a few times and tried to engage 2nd, eventually slammed into 3rd and chimed/lit the CEL. It stayed stuck in 3rd until I came to a red light and power-cycled the vehicle. After that, it had all 8 gears again but shifted differently than "normal." I drove it straight to the dealership, more or less threw the key at my service advisor and he pulled the code immediately. The code is for "incorrect gear ratio" if I'm remembering correctly, which our dear Moparman Jeff says "is the slipping code." We are hoping it's a simple valve body or speed sensor but who knows. 

The transmissions in these are the same ZF 8-speed that is in literally everything now. The trans is beefed up for truck use in a few ways and uses Ram's programming - every brand runs their own software. But, they are known for being very solid. So I'm hoping it's something small. My service advisor is an old BMW nerd so we get along well - he is building a LS1/T56 E38 7-series and was really into my M3 as well. 

Dane said he's having the shop foreman look at the truck this morning, so I should know more later today. He was pleased that a code was set as it gives their team something to start with, diagnosis-wise. Fingers crossed but very glad to have this warranty now.