My Ram dumped all its transmission fluid

[JimG_AZ2]

Last week I had a dealer repair disaster. I took my ’03 Ram 2500 CTD 48RE to my local Dodge dealer for a transmission flush. When I picked the truck up, I made it maybe 4 blocks away from the dealer when I noticed the engine seemed to be freely revving. I got stopped at a light and decided I had better head back to the Dodge dealer. The light turned green and my Ram would no longer go forward or reverse. I immediately killed the engine. There was transmission fluid everywhere under the truck. One of the cooler lines popped off and the ATF was just being pumped out as I drove. I ended up having to call Dodge Road Side assistance to have the truck towed back. The next morning they fixed the problem and cleaned the truck up. So far it seems to run fine. I guess my question is if I need to be concerned about long term effects. A friend of mine is a GM tech and he is concerned that my clutches were damaged once I hit the throttle and the truck would no longer move. What do you guys think?

 

[JCleary]

More than likely the ATF pumped out of the torque converter and caused your truck not to move...

My truck won't move when I start in the morning because the TC drains. Probably no biggie.

Oh, and welcome to TDR!

 

[LRutigliano]

That sucks!!! I'm very sorry to hear your problem, it makes me sick to think about it.



Seriously, its probably ok. Just make sure you are there and the morning tech that is late and getting yelled at by the shop foreman for screwing up doesn't try to drive your truck into the service bay...



Hopefully your dealership is like my local one and will take special care of you. These things happen, so now lets see what they do to make it up to you with excellent and timely service.



Take lots of pics and document the issue in your "warranty" file at the dealership.



Make sure they explain to you how this happened and what the long term effects could be and that they commit (in writing) to cover any future issues you may have.



Hopefully all they did was not tighten a fitting, but I would ask to ensure they didn't damage or cross thread something.



I would also probably ask them to replace your filter and drop the pan to inspect the bands.



Good luck.

 

[rbattelle]

I guess my question is if I need to be concerned about long term effects. A friend of mine is a GM tech and he is concerned that my clutches were damaged once I hit the throttle and the truck would no longer move. What do you guys think?

Having rebuilt an automatic, I would argue that as long as the truck wasn't "driven" any significant distance, there's no wear issues associated with running it empty.



Ryan

 

[DPKetchum]

Besides a hassel you got a second dose of new fliud through out.