I overlooked when researching to investigate the service departments of the dealers near me. I love my Ram and feel I made the right choice brand wise after research. However, it seems that Ram has the weakest dealer service network and, in our area, by far the worst service experience of the 3 main brands. The two closest dealerships are owned by the same chain, and I and many others have had terrible experiences with them. I have talked to almost every 2019+ Ram owner I encounter locally, and nobody has liked the local Ram dealer. Several take their trucks to the Ford service dept for routine and non-warranty work. Our local Ford dealer service is miles better than Ram. So is the local GMC service. If I had thought to consider after purchase service, I might have opted for either Ford or GMC, but I felt that Ram was the better truck and so far, I love it. I just wish I could trust, or even get service from our dealer. The couple of times I actually get in there, I know more about what is going on from reading this forum, than the service department does. So consider that too in your purchase decision.
I have had a recall and a couple small warranty issues and when I call, the "first" appointment is always 3 or 4 months away which may be b.s. It seems like they maybe just don't want to do warranty work. I had to make an appt for the heater grid recall and the "scheduler" said their first warranty appointment was 3-1/2 months away. I took the truck in the next day for the quick lube oil and filters change and the service writer told me I had the open recall. I explained about the first appt. being 3+ months out and he rolled his eyes and hinted that the scheduler just has to do that. He said they had service technicians standing around looking for something to do and they did it right then.
Most recently I have a leaking shock. The wait for a dealer appointment for that is months. I tried to get in for that on my original heater grid appt as I no longer needed that and it was coming up. They said no and that I had to cancel the heater grid appt. and make a new one for the shock. Then they told me that the shock appointment is only to inspect the shock to make sure it is indeed leaking and it was not damaged by road debris or something. If they determine it is a covered repair, at that point another appointment will be scheduled to replace it. I thought of just replacing the OEM shocks with Bilsteins which I had and liked on my previous truck. But the rears have been backordered and unavailable locally so have not done that either. I wish I was capable of doing work on my vehicles myself as I could just get the shocks online and change them. But I don't have the tools or experience so I am stuck with horrible dealer service and supply chain problems.
