Stranded Too....In the Middle of Rita

[lgjohnson]

During the coming onslaught of Hurricane Rita, we were using our '03 3500 CTD to evacuate from our home to a safer place further north. About 60 miles up the road from home, the Dodge decides its time to shed the transmission and it blows!!!! Just about everything we could salvage from the house was in that truck. It's not like this truck has been abused. Its been serviced according to the manual and only used to tow less than 10 times. It was an anemic 48RE automatic.

Guys, I've been a Dodge/Cummins fan for a long, long time, but between the lift pump issue 2 months ago, the crappy cheap paint and now a $7 thrust washer has caused untold amount of transmission damage. Fortunately its still under warranty, but thats not the point. The point is that when we needed the truck the most, it let us down and jepordized the life of my family, myself and our belongings. Fortunately, my wife was behind me in a Honda Civic and thats how we escaped the storm... ... we just left the Dodge in the ditch.

Needless to say, I've just about had it with this truck. The Cummins engine is great and I love it but the rest of of the truck is just plain pitiful..... there isn't any other words to describe it.

I'm ordering a new Powerstroke just as soon as this area gets back to normal. :-laf

 

[Davey]

Tow bill to the transmission shop - $100

Rental car for 2 days - $60

Rebuilt DTT transmission - $3600

The look on your face when your new 6. 0 powerstroke pukes it's engine... . you know the rest.



On a serious note, everyone knows the weak spot of the Dodge's and what's required to fix it. Other than a Cummins swap, how do you fix the weak spot on a Ford?

 

[Diesel Nut]

Don't do that or you'll be hating the WHOLE truck, engine included. It seems those autos just weren't up to par. My only issue with my viper/kw has been the foglight situation I've had in the last 2 days, 74K+ miles and a ton of em towing and hotdoging. I didn't trust the autos yet and thats why I got another 6 speed. Its frustrating, yes, no doubt. But slow down and try not to make a rash desicion you may regret. I grew up a ford boy and still am, honestly. But in the configuration I have, there isn't a better built or enginnered truck on the road. Bar none. You show me a P-stroke or D-max owner that says he gets 20-22 empty and 12-14 towing a 13K 5th wheel and I'll show you some rubber boots, so you don't have to stand in the bull ****! :-laf And ask that same guy to dyno some serous power. Yeah right! They are out there, but few are FAR between. I could go on and on. I'm a bomber for life, and the first thing I would do if I bought an Auto was upgrade the transmission. Just me.

 

[lgjohnson]

Yeah, both of you guys make a good point in the above posts and I'm trying not to make a decision on sheer anger and emotion... but frustrating is an understatement. This didn't just happen on a normal day commuting to work or going to the grocery store... ... this was a bad situation and reliability was everything.

I wanted the 6-speed when I bought this truck and now may be the time to get one.....

This ONE thing I do know: this truck is HISTORY as soon as its repaired.

Who in their right mind would put something that weak behind a Cummins engine?... . never mind, we all know the answer to that one.

I appreciate the advice... ...

 

[Diesel Nut]

BTW- Glad you made it out ok. Hope the wife doesn't shoot ya when you tel her your getting a new truck! If it were me, I would put a quality upgraded trans in and runit, unless there are enough other thing to make you desire a new truck.

 

[GFritsch]

We use Powerstrokes for our fleet trucks at the construction company I work at. Or at least we did. New trucks ordered will be Duramax as the Fords have been unreliable and terribly expensive to maintain. Most trucks are retired before 150K with a service record that reads like a novel.



If only I could have talked them into Dodges. Oh well... ... maybe next round.

 

[lgjohnson]

Yeah, we're still without power here (running on a generator), but we got the phones/internet back today and got water back yesterday but you can only shower in it and not use it as drinking water till its tested. We have to go 80 miles round trip for gas (about $4/gallon), but have plenty of food/water. We've been working dawn/dusk trying to clear the mess off our property. We've got several acres out here in the country (small farming operation) and I had to cut 6 good-sized trees just to get back down the driveway here, but the house only had a half dozen shingles missing, and 2 broken windows in the back patio area. My shop was untouched except for some minor edge stripping that I've already put back on... . estimated wind speed for this area was around 100 mph with gusts to 120... . so we were very fortunate that we only suffered the damage that we did. The Dodge was not the only thing that puked during the this time of trial..... my John Deere tractor puked a hydraulic line on the front end loader today while moving logs to the burn pile... . probably my fault for overloading it. I had to go almost 100 miles round trip to get one; but the Honda Civic, the Honda generator, the Husqvarna chain saw and the Stihl chain saw haven't missed a beat in this time of crisis... ... . at least not yet.

My wife is the one that wants this truck gone... even more than I do.

The hard part would be convincing her to buy another Dodge..... that is going to take some finesse. She has no problem with the manual transmission as thats whats in her Civic.

 

[thejeepdude]

This ONE thing I do know: this truck is HISTORY as soon as its repaired.

Who in their right mind would put something that weak behind a Cummins engine?...

Why do that? I call this an OPPORTUNITY! Get the DTT parts. Have DC pay for the install of DTT parts under warranty. Of course you have no warranty after that, but who cares. You'll definitely have a solid transmission! I'm just looking forward to the day mine pukes!

 

[KDillard]

Autos ......

Yea just like who puts a 545rfe behind a hemi. Thats why i have the nv5600. Hurry and try to find an 05 6spd nv5600 qc lwb. Its gonna be a long search but a darn pleasing one. The allison trans are puking too. Fords have tin cans filled with beans shaking going down the road. I hear one of the beans get bounced up into the air intake once in a while and either take out the turbo or the whole motor befor 30k miles. :-laf

 

[Bertram65]

Sorry to hear about the problems you had, glad everything worked out for you.

A lot of automatic bashing in this thread, the 48RE has been a very good transmission with very few failures, was the shop that is repairing actually able to show you the failed part and explain what happened to it?