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My 2021 Ram 2500 tradesman shifts into natural while driving

wvargas

wvargas

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My 2021 Ram 2500 tradesman shifts into natural while driving and I get a "4WD Neutral warning vehicle may move even in park" message on my cluster. its normally happens when driving in the city traffic on warm or hot days or when parked with truck on again on hot days. the first time it happened I was at a McDonalds drive thru waiting on my order and it just shifted in to neutral and started to roll, you could imagine my surprise as I haven't even done my first oil change yet. last summer I was on a boat ram getting ready to drop my boat in the water and almost ended up with my brand new truck in the water very scary situation. has any one else experienced the same issue with their truck,
 

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So just an update, so I’ve been researching and found a few other cases like mine and they all say that they take there truck to the dealership and they can not figure out the issue. So my first thought was that the linkage for the 4x4 shifter mite me bad so I checked it and it was good. Then I was thinking why dose it only happens on hot days. so while I was checking the linkage on the transfer case I noticed that there was a sensor/switch right over the lever where the 4x4 shifter connecting rod is attached to. Which I assumed was some kind of neutral switch. Which was funny to me because I had a “flashback” where I had a 88 Honda goldwing that was doing the same thing and I was able to repair it by replacing the natural switch. So I took a chance and bought a new switch. I’ve attached a picture of the switch and the part number. So I replaced the switch and I’m so happy to report that I fix the problem. No more shifting into neutral on its own.
 

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That doesn’t make any sense. If you have a push button (electronic) shift transfer case then there shouldn’t be a linkage. If you have a manual lever controlled transfer case then it can’t shift into neutral on its own.
 
jsalbre said:
That doesn’t make any sense. If you have a push button (electronic) shift transfer case then there shouldn’t be a linkage. If you have a manual lever controlled transfer case then it can’t shift into neutral on its own.
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So I do not have the push button (electronic) shift transfer case I have the manual shifter. and rest a sure that on hot days or when parked idling or in city driving on hot days my truck would shift into neutral. It seems like the switch had some kind of defect, when it would get hot it would go into neutral. So changed the switch that I attached with the part number and my problem was resolved.
 
That switch may tell the truck your transfer case is in neutral, but it can’t make the transfer case shift into neutral.

Are you sure the linkage isn’t damaged or loose, causing it to actually slip into neutral, and the sensor is indicating it properly?
 
I understand what you are saying, my truck has the (electronic) transmission shifter so I think that the switch tells the transmission to go into neutral when you try to shift to 4x4 so when the (defective switch)would get hot it would send a signal to the ECM and the ECM would shift the transmission into neutral. It was terrible.
 
wvargas said:
I understand what you are saying, my truck has the (electronic) transmission shifter so I think that the switch tells the transmission to go into neutral when you try to shift to 4x4 so when the (defective switch)would get hot it would send a signal to the ECM and the ECM would shift the transmission into neutral. It was terrible.
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jsalbre said:
That switch may tell the truck your transfer case is in neutral, but it can’t make the transfer case shift into neutral.

Are you sure the linkage isn’t damaged or loose, causing it to actually slip into neutral, and the sensor is indicating it properly?
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The linkage was the first thing I check when I started having this issue.
 
wvargas said:
My 2021 Ram 2500 tradesman shifts into natural while driving and I get a "4WD Neutral warning vehicle may move even in park" message on my cluster. its normally happens when driving in the city traffic on warm or hot days or when parked with truck on again on hot days. the first time it happened I was at a McDonalds drive thru waiting on my order and it just shifted in to neutral and started to roll, you could imagine my surprise as I haven't even done my first oil change yet. last summer I was on a boat ram getting ready to drop my boat in the water and almost ended up with my brand new truck in the water very scary situation. has any one else experienced the same issue with their truck,
Click to expand...
My 2019 tradesman has the manual transfer case and it started doing this a while ago. If i would nudge the lever forward or backward it would go back to normal but i had to hold it against the detent. It wouldn't actually shift into neutral just give the warning as you described. Glad i found this as I'm hopeful it will take care of my issue as well. How difficult was swapping the switch out?
 
Diegosando said:
My 2019 tradesman has the manual transfer case and it started doing this a while ago. If i would nudge the lever forward or backward it would go back to normal but i had to hold it against the detent. It wouldn't actually shift into neutral just give the warning as you described. Glad i found this as I'm hopeful it will take care of my issue as well. How difficult was swapping the switch out?
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Its threaded and easy to change, its more likely the t case shifter is out of adjustment
 
H3LZSN1P3R said:
Its threaded and easy to change, its more likely the t case shifter is out of adjustment
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No that was the first thing I thought too but that didn't take care of it. Last night I was poking around the tcase and found that switch and made sure the wires were plugged in tight and this morning it appears to have quit doing it so maybe I just had to loose connection..time will tell. Thanks
 
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