some states have yearly safety inspections before renewing the license, i suppose in some cases it's needed.
not every body has the ability or desire to do their own inspections......in her case she should have a qualified mechanic inspect it on a yearly schedule, in fact i recommend a safety inspection on every vehicle..... (i inspect mine and do all repairs myself)

 

Shouldn't be an unusually common failure, especially if it's greased regularly. But tie rods have been failing as long as tie rods have been in existence, that's nothing new. People should know what to do when one fails though. Basically you just need to use your parking brake to stop and not the brake pedal (or the tire just folds in). You can usually steer somewhat with one wheel and the caster will allow the other wheel to follow provided you don't hit the brake pedal. A buddy of mine had his Oldsmopile's tie rod fail after leaving work one night. He still managed to drive it home 6 miles away.

 

I've never heard of this with a Dodge Ram in the past few years. I agree that the dealer is a knucklehead. This did happen to my wife in our old 03 GMC Conversion van. Of course it happened on a Sunday and nobody was open so I had to rig it up just to get it off the road.

 

Yep, I agree. Making blanket hysterical cxomments like that just adds fuel to the fire, but doesen't solve anything. If this was a real issue it would definitely get national attention. I assume this was covered under warranty correct?

 

it will be under warrantee,they cant repair it till thursday.the failure was the crimping of the housing of the joint letting the ball pull through.since this happened I have spoke to three other guys that have had similar issues,all of them caught it before it fell off,but the joint was shot,one had only 6000 miles on it!
One nabour is on his 3rd joint with only 45000 miles on his truck,it is dealer serviced and he said every other time he gets his oil changed the dealer shows him the play in his tie rods and recommends replacing them.he is also on his third set of ball joints.he is now going to try moog problem solvers even though they are not under his warrantee,just to save the down time.It seems with most board members not having issues mabe this is a canadian problem?mabe the outsource for canadian trucks is differant than the u.s?? I am gonna do a general google search on this to see what I can find,I'll keep you posted.

 

If it was the US my advice would be to report it to the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NTTSA). This is the link, https://www-odi.nhtsa.dot.gov/ivoq/Consumer.cfm

Is there a Canadian equivilant?

 

We lose lots of them in our underground trucks but their lifes a little harsher than most. They make it 6000 miles if we're lucky.