Got mail today stating safety recall L 16 left tie rod ball joint may fracture under certain driving conditions...also, states that the front axle track bar bolt torque must be checked.

Anyone have further info on this?

Oh and to be safe should I put the rig back to stock even though this is just for suspension work before taking to the dealer? I have Cali deletes and a smarty jr ME program

Thanks for your input

 

Tell them not to flash the ECM.. Make them put it electronically on the service order so there is no mistake. if it's just a suspension recall, they may find out when they run your vin there is an update or something and then all hell breaks loose. That's why you tell them.

 

Powerwagon500: i'm going to the dealer in the morning i will post more with what i find out

 

Somebody needs to invent an OBD-II lockout plug.

 

The tie rod on the driver's side on my 2500 09' sheered in half , and I lost steering control. My speed was about 10mph. This, by the way, happened almost a year ago. I had to pay out of pocket to have Dodge fix it.The real kicker, is, that 3 days ago, I got the recall letter in the mail, and guess what happened today, IT BROKE AGAIN. Im so ******. 57,000 miles on truck

 

mlsims10: did you have any warnings before it broke? I just picked up a brand new 2011 2500 4X4 2 weeks ago and it's been giving me trouble. Lost steering control when making a slow left turn. Had it towed into dodge and they could not find the problem so told me to take the truck home and come back if it happens again. Then the day I got it back, drove home and parked it for 30 min. Went back out to start it and it wouldn't go in gear so had it towed back. Now dodge is telling me some kind of shift motor is bad and they need to change that first

 

Got in the truck, started it, put it in reverse,BAM!, snapped in half

 

Received my notice yesterday. I hope to not have problems before they get me in to do the work.

 

Letter to owners:

http://www-odi.nhtsa.dot.gov/acms/cs...1V350-0123.pdf

Looks like it's all 4th gens built before March 28th, 2011 and 3rd gens that received the other steering linkage recall. That would include mine- first trip back to the dealer.

Edit: Just called the dealer, said they check the tie rod ends right vs. the left and if they are more than 5 degrees different then you get a replacement. He said they'd seen some as bad as 14 degrees different. Reading through the NHTSA literature it sounded to me like bad parts from a supplier- not sure how that relates to the difference in angle??? Maybe somebody can explain....

Anyway, parts are in short supply so he put me on "the list".

 

Just got back from the dealer...didn't put rig back to stock. They were busy enough that all they did was put it on the rack, check the angle and tightened the track bolt.

Drove it back out

I couldn't have asked for anything to go more smoothly

 

Glad to hear. Did you ask which angle they are looking for? Up or down(when viewed from the front)? In or out (when viewed from beneath)? Or maybe it's just supposed to be less than 5 degrees different in all directions? Seems like that would seriously mess with your alignment anyway.

 

Sorry didn't think about asking as I was to busy watching to make sure no computer got near the thing

 

Got an appt Tues to have mine checked. I am wondering what they are using as a replacement if tie rod is supposedly bad. Is the replacement stronger and not supposed to eventually go bad again and break?

 

Took mine in last week a couple of days after I got the recall notice. The dealership said mine was bad and replaced it. Don't know how they could tell it was bad.

 

It's not a part problem, it's an installation problem. If you watch the steering through its cycle you'll see the tie rod ends move axially (guessing at the term, but they roll frnt-to-rear as well as pivot when the knuckle turns). When the factory installed the steering, if the tie rod ends were more than a few degrees apart they would cause a bind near the turning limits and put a lot of stress on the TRE shaft to the point of failure.
I think Thuren had a video on his website:
www.thurenfabrication.com in the video section