Hi all, I posted a little about this in another thread, but rather than hijack someone else's thread I thought I'd post my own experience with this. I'm also going to be updating this to let others know how Ram customer service handles this.
So to recap I bought my truck through Dennis Dillon and picked it up in March of this year. I have put a little over 7200 miles on the truck which was 50/50 towing and driving around town. I usually get my diesel from Chevron gas stations.
And on to the story....
This past Sunday (September 20th), I was hauling a 24' enclosed car trailer from San Diego to Las Vegas. It was loaded with a car that I had just picked up from the painter and was looking forward to getting it back home. As we were going through the Victorville area on Interstate 15 the engine appeared to have a misfire or stumble. Shortly after that an alert message appeared on the dash regarding an Exhaust Emission service was needed. Shortly after that the truck started to lose power and another warning appeared regarding a Service Electronic Ignition was needed and then the truck went into limp mode.
I was able to get across three lanes of freeway traffic before barely being able to make it off the freeway. I was able to find a relatively safe area to pull over and turned the truck off. It wouldn't then restart so we were stranded about 200 miles from Las Vegas. I called Ram roadside assistance from the truck and arranged a tow of my truck and trailer to the closest Ram dealer. We were extremely fortunate that there was a dealership only three miles away. We were charged $150 to tow the trailer 3 miles. Since this was Sunday afternoon, their service department was closed, so we just dropped it off there.
Then we took an Uber to a hotel room for the night (my wife and son were with me). The next morning we rented a car so we could drive home but first I called the dealership to check in with them. The receptionist was pretty nonchalant about the fact that my six month old truck with 7200 miles had just stranded us 200 miles from home. She said that they were busy with appointments and would get to it eventually and probably contact me on Wednesday with an update. I didn't find this to be acceptable so I insisted on talking with a service rep who was Jason. He gave me pretty much the same answer. Since we had left some of our stuff in the truck, we dropped by the dealership (Victorville Ram Truck Center in Victorville), and spoke in person with Jason. He acted like he was very indifferent to the fact that we were stranded and didn't bother doing anything to assist us getting home or getting our trailer taken care of. He told me Ram would cover $35 a day in car rental. The one way car rental to get us back to Las Vegas was $135 or so.
So we left and drove to Las Vegas on Monday morning. On Monday afternoon I rented a 3/4 ton pickup and left early on Tuesday morning and drove to Victorville to get my trailer. I met again with Jason, who again didn't even apologize once for the inconvenience of this whole episode. He did however inform me that the failure was due to the CP4 fuel pump failing and that it was all covered under warranty. They would have to order $15k worth of parts since metal shards are all through the fuel system. I was able to haul the trailer back home without incident.
We then contacted Ram Care (I think that's what it is called) and have a case number assigned. As of Friday afternoon (today) We have yet to talk with anyone to actually move things forward as to how Ram is going to handle this. I have incurred several expenses directly related to the truck breaking down - a towing expense for the trailer (there was no charge to two the truck), a hotel room for the night, a car rental to get us home, a truck rental to retrieve my trailer (along with the diesel expense) and the Uber expenses as well. We also had to pay our pet-sitter an additional night (we were very fortunate that she was able to stay an additional night).
I have called my Case Manager (Sara) multiple times in the last 3 days and have yet to hear back. She is always busy and not able to come to the phone and has not yet returned my calls. I have also emailed her today, but so far no response.
I have also reached out to Mark on this forum with Ram Cares and he has replied, but obviously it's not anything he is responsible for handling.
I also have a couple of questions regarding the repair for Ram Customer Care:
Are they going to simply replace the failed CP4 with another CP4 unit, or will they be replacing it with a CP3 unit - this would be my preference by far.
How do I go about getting reimbursed for the out of pocket expenses resulting from this episode? Will they even do that??
I would also like the truck to be shipped from Victorville to a Las Vegas Ram dealer once the service is complete rather than expecting me to drive 200 miles to go pick it up.
Anyway, that's the status of things so far on a Friday afternoon. No one has contacted me so far to update me on anything.
So to recap I bought my truck through Dennis Dillon and picked it up in March of this year. I have put a little over 7200 miles on the truck which was 50/50 towing and driving around town. I usually get my diesel from Chevron gas stations.
And on to the story....
This past Sunday (September 20th), I was hauling a 24' enclosed car trailer from San Diego to Las Vegas. It was loaded with a car that I had just picked up from the painter and was looking forward to getting it back home. As we were going through the Victorville area on Interstate 15 the engine appeared to have a misfire or stumble. Shortly after that an alert message appeared on the dash regarding an Exhaust Emission service was needed. Shortly after that the truck started to lose power and another warning appeared regarding a Service Electronic Ignition was needed and then the truck went into limp mode.
I was able to get across three lanes of freeway traffic before barely being able to make it off the freeway. I was able to find a relatively safe area to pull over and turned the truck off. It wouldn't then restart so we were stranded about 200 miles from Las Vegas. I called Ram roadside assistance from the truck and arranged a tow of my truck and trailer to the closest Ram dealer. We were extremely fortunate that there was a dealership only three miles away. We were charged $150 to tow the trailer 3 miles. Since this was Sunday afternoon, their service department was closed, so we just dropped it off there.
Then we took an Uber to a hotel room for the night (my wife and son were with me). The next morning we rented a car so we could drive home but first I called the dealership to check in with them. The receptionist was pretty nonchalant about the fact that my six month old truck with 7200 miles had just stranded us 200 miles from home. She said that they were busy with appointments and would get to it eventually and probably contact me on Wednesday with an update. I didn't find this to be acceptable so I insisted on talking with a service rep who was Jason. He gave me pretty much the same answer. Since we had left some of our stuff in the truck, we dropped by the dealership (Victorville Ram Truck Center in Victorville), and spoke in person with Jason. He acted like he was very indifferent to the fact that we were stranded and didn't bother doing anything to assist us getting home or getting our trailer taken care of. He told me Ram would cover $35 a day in car rental. The one way car rental to get us back to Las Vegas was $135 or so.
So we left and drove to Las Vegas on Monday morning. On Monday afternoon I rented a 3/4 ton pickup and left early on Tuesday morning and drove to Victorville to get my trailer. I met again with Jason, who again didn't even apologize once for the inconvenience of this whole episode. He did however inform me that the failure was due to the CP4 fuel pump failing and that it was all covered under warranty. They would have to order $15k worth of parts since metal shards are all through the fuel system. I was able to haul the trailer back home without incident.
We then contacted Ram Care (I think that's what it is called) and have a case number assigned. As of Friday afternoon (today) We have yet to talk with anyone to actually move things forward as to how Ram is going to handle this. I have incurred several expenses directly related to the truck breaking down - a towing expense for the trailer (there was no charge to two the truck), a hotel room for the night, a car rental to get us home, a truck rental to retrieve my trailer (along with the diesel expense) and the Uber expenses as well. We also had to pay our pet-sitter an additional night (we were very fortunate that she was able to stay an additional night).
I have called my Case Manager (Sara) multiple times in the last 3 days and have yet to hear back. She is always busy and not able to come to the phone and has not yet returned my calls. I have also emailed her today, but so far no response.
I have also reached out to Mark on this forum with Ram Cares and he has replied, but obviously it's not anything he is responsible for handling.
I also have a couple of questions regarding the repair for Ram Customer Care:
Are they going to simply replace the failed CP4 with another CP4 unit, or will they be replacing it with a CP3 unit - this would be my preference by far.
How do I go about getting reimbursed for the out of pocket expenses resulting from this episode? Will they even do that??
I would also like the truck to be shipped from Victorville to a Las Vegas Ram dealer once the service is complete rather than expecting me to drive 200 miles to go pick it up.
Anyway, that's the status of things so far on a Friday afternoon. No one has contacted me so far to update me on anything.
. I don't know how else to express my sympathy for you and your family, that's a very scary situation to be put in for a child. As of now, i can't relate but i feel for you cobra.
