Diesels Hassle

Gray1Ghost wrote:
I had a 2008 Dodge Ram 3500 CTD SRW Laramie which hauled my NL 8.5 while pulling my drift boat. It had 71,000 miles on it. Except for having to replace a U-joint I had no problems with the truck until May. It hauled the camper and boat easily. I had all of the routine maintenance and the U-joint replacement performed at Dodge dealerships. I started on a 4 month trip May 20 of this year. On the first night of my trip on the interstate in the middle of Louisville the service engine light came on, the truck lost power, the engine died and I coasted down an off ramp. My rig was transported to a Dodge dealership the next morning and a problem was found in the diesel particulate filter. I was told they would have to replace the diesel particulate filter and if that didn't solve the problem they would have to replace the turbo. The dealership did not have either part so they ordered the filter. I asked them to order both so I would not have to spend an additional day in Louisville waiting on the turbo if changing the filter did not solve the problem. My truck had three weeks left on the warranty. They told me Chrysler would cover the cost of the repair but Chrysler would not let the dealership order both the filter and the turbo at the same time. The charge for replacing the filter at the dealership was $1800 and the cost of replacing the turbo was $7000.

The dealership replaced the filter but it did not solve the problem. They notified Chrysler to get the turbo but Chrysler told them to try cleaning the turbo and see if that corrected the problem. They were going to charge me $250 to clean the turbo but I balked at paying that because the only reason they had to clean the turbo was due to the faulty filter or exhaust system. I told them to go ahead and clean the turbo and we would decide who would pay for it later. They sheared a bolt while attempting to remove the turbo to clean it so it ended up needing to be replaced anyway. By this time in the day it was too late to order the turbo for arrival the next day. It arrived on Friday and was replaced. Chrysler's service representative told me they would have paid for the cleaning if it had been required.

I had been a member of the Cummins Turbo Diesel Registry and had known about the exhaust problems with this generation of Cummins engine. Some owners had after market fixes performed at auto shops. The fix involved removing the filter and inserting chips into the trucks computer instructing the computer to ignore error messages from exhaust sensors. This fix actually improved the engines power and fuel economy. While hauling my rig I only got 12 mpg in the Dodge CTD, not anywhere close to the 5.9 CTD's mpg. Dodge dealerships would not inform you of this fix or perform the fix. There were warnings that doing so would void the engine's warranty.

While my truck was being repaired I looked into this generation of Dodge CTD and found many other owners have experienced the same problem, the same sudden dying of the engine leaving the owner stranded. When I talked with the Chrysler Customer Service Representative (not the dealership where the work was performed ) I was told it was Chrysler's policy to not allow the dealer to order the filter and the turbo at the same time because replacing the filter or cleaning the turbo had corrected the problem in "hundreds of cases". The dealership told me they had four previous cases and replacing the DPF and cleaning the turbo did not solve the problem. That dealership had to replace the turbo every time.

It was actually to my benefit the engine died when it did. If it had died 3 weeks later I would have been out at least $8800 dollars ($1800 for the DPF and $7000 for the turbo).
I believe Chrysler should have owned up to the problems with this generation of engine/exhaust and recalled and fixed the vehicle. They know many owners of this generation of CTD have been left stranded and they should have had a repair process that was consumer friendly and not more economical for them. I left Louisville in a new gas truck and it wasn't a Dodge. During the four months I was gone I drove the haul road to Prudhoe Bay. I hate to think what the price for towing the Dodge truck would have been on that road.

The Dodge truck had more power than the new gas truck. I could tell the difference on a couple of the climbs in the mountains of Colorado. However, the new truck handled the load of my rig fine from Louisville to the Arctic Ocean and back well. I do miss the exhaust brake coming down the mountain grades but the transmission in the new truck does allow me to gear down to a specific gear. The cost of a diesel engine is several thousands of dollars more than a gasser. In NC where I live, regular gas is consistently 35 to 45 cents less per gallon than diesel. Routine maintenance costs on the diesel were also higher than on the gasser.
Note, I'm reporting what happened to me and why i made the decision to go gas and not Dodge.