You know what?

My Dodge is every bit as good as my Chevy's were. I know people who swear by Furd, even with their problems.

I just happened to find a Dodge dealer that is a real GEM to work with, and treats his customers as what they are, valuable.

I think you can lay this one more at the feet of the individual dealers more than the factory.

 

And DC allowed them to purchase a franchise from them. And sell their vehicles. And is what amounts to the public face of the company. As such, there should be considerably less variation in how the customer is treated. And their warranty department is at least as much to blame as the dealers. They keep the hourly repay rate low (in the dealer's eyes), and decline claims and charge them back to the dealer. This breeds reluctance to fix any actual problems they come across unless they absolutely can't avoid it.

 

ummm....don't charge me for a valve adjustment at 100k??? Not my fault it has to be done "to prevent the potential for the top end coming apart"

 

Ehh. I wouldn't worry about that to much. 2 of my buddy's had over 200k on theirs, one was a 12v the other a 24v, and both were used to race and tow and neither had any issues.

 

Quite a few have hit the nail on the head.

First. DC needs to fix it's warranty problems. Many dealers try to automatically charge the deductable and won't even look up what is/isn't covered as well as they don't know their product and it''s warranty.

Second. DC needs a serious program and decent pay scale to train and retain their mechanics/techs or whatever you want to call them. My experiances with 4 different dealers is that only 1 of them had a qualified diesel mechanic and I had to use him to repair another dealers major screw up that stopped my truck in the middle of the road.

Fighting warranty issues and trying to not feel like the dealer just "Gave it to ya" kinda takes the fun out of owning a new vehicle. And if it isn't dependable that totally destroys your confidence in it.

My 04.5 has left me roadsided on 7 occasions (four of them for over 3 days and 3 of them out of state requiring motel, rent a cars etc) in 28 months, that is why I pick up my new 07 this Friday. Any problems initally and will Lemon Law it without hesitation and find something else. Really like the Cummins/Dodge package but can't stand problems......Want to get in it and drive it not fix it.....

Hear me roar....This is your last chance Dodge......

 

Oh yeah, I was like if it's been fine for the first 100k what's wrong with the next? I had no problem with the adjustment itself, just didn't feel like paying the full price for it vs maybe a deductible. Did those 12v's ever have theirs done?
Wow don, that sucks. Almost sounds like you got some Ford-type luck! Granted I did not own mine for the first 92k, i've put over 23k on mine in a little under 13 months time and have not had any major issues. The truck has sold me on Dodge, and I was sold on the engine LOOOONG before I ever owned one.

 

From my near 10 month experience with my truck, most of the people in here have filled my "complaints".

My main issues is that DC, Dodge DEALERSHIPS primarily, are hiring a LARGE crowd of folks that have NO CLUE what they are doing. I think that people should be trained more as a specialty rather than just a "I know how to work some on this car and I know how to work some on that truck" basis. It is very frustrating taking your vehicle in to have warranty work done on it and they just give you the "deer in the headlights" look because they honestly have no clue what you're talking about when you tell them that it's a 2500 issue, not a 1500 issue, etc etc. I understand that nobody knows it all, but when I hand you the TSB paperwork and you still look at me like I am to blame, that's garbage.

I also don't like how many ruthless, non-caring low-life service personnel that they hire that are more interested in "making sure that it's not DCs fault" rather than FIXING the problem, while it's STILL under warranty and a TSB is out on the problem at hand. I am going to light up the dealership I bought my truck from when I get home from being out to sea for basically blowing me off for TWO WEEKS and claiming that my trailer package TSB wouldn't be taken care of under warranty because I installed a brake controller myself. That is POOR service at best, especially when I went around the corner to another dealership and they fixed my truck's issue without question.

I love my truck. Hasn't given me a SINGLE problem, other than power issues to the tow package which is now fixed. So I guess all in all, customer service is DCs biggest problem to me.

 

This is more what I am looking for... the basics - and of course, better warranty coverage and knowledge.

 

The customer service is bad both sales and service. Thats why I bought my 2001 at the Chevy dealer. Dodge salesmen didn't even want to talk to me. I may be young but that dosen't mean that i can't afford to buy a truck. So i saw the 2001 at the Chevy dealer so i stoped and I was out of there with it in about 1 hour.

I wish the Chevy dealer knew how to work on Dodges they actually get the job done when they say they are going to, not maybe tomorrow like Dodge says when you call them on the day its supposed to be done.

 

I think some dealerships are PO’ed at Dodge as back in Jan. all diesel techs (maybe gas to but am not sure if they had to be retrained or not) were required to go back to school to be retrained. Some dealers who did not send there’s to Dodge school for training are having a problems meeting the requirements for payment on warranty claims. One other thing I heard is that Dodge may get rid of up to 1/3 of their dealers who don’t meet some new requirements that Dodge initiated just after the first of the year. So lets hope they get rid of a bunch of the bad ones who give us all a pain in the rear.

 

Honor thier rust through warranty on the doors. Be smart enough to know that the rust did not start forming the day before you brought it in for repair at 101,000 miles.

Dave