Dash Wiring Problems of Dodge RAM

The contact owns a 1996 Dodge Ram. The contact noticed a chemical odor coming from the dashboard and the heater. The headlights flickered and the instrument panel lighting suddenly dimmed. The headlights went completely dim. The contact turned everything back on, but the headlights only illuminated for a few minutes. After driving without headlights, he noticed smoke coming from the vents on the driver's side. He pulled into his residence and turned off the vehicle, but the headlights remained illuminated. He attempted to turn the headlights off, but was unsuccessful. Smoke filled the vehicle and produced an awful odor. He removed the lamp fuse, but the buzzing noise still indicated that the headlights were illuminated. He reinserted the fuse and the buzzing sound continued. He noticed that the wiring harness was melted. The vehicle has not been repaired and is parked at his residence. The failure and current mileages were 180,000.

See all problems of the 1996 Dodge RAM 🔎.

The vehicle had an electrical shortage under the dashboard, which resulted in a fire. The consumer has requested information about other vehicles (same make/model) who has experienced the same problem. Scc.

See all problems of the 1997 Dodge RAM 🔎.

Instruments panel has failed to work due to circuit board. Dealer was notified, and unwilling to assist due to vehicle being out of warranty/ not covered under manufacturer's recall. Provide any further details on this matter.

See all problems of the 1998 Dodge RAM 🔎.

All instrument guages and warning lights do not work consistantly. At times there is no way to know what speed I am going and how much full I have because the guages are not working. I believe this consitutes a safety problem. I have heard other owners of 1997 model year vehicles were having similar problems.

Truck caught fire in middle of night apparently due to some sort of electrical short. Truck was totally engulfed and was a total loss as well as everything around it. Chrysler said that they could not see anything that would permit them to associate the fire with a manufacturing or assembly error, and that they are sure that we can appreciate that fires of this nature do occur for reasons not associated with the manufacturing process! well, please tell me why they have had so many fires of their vehicles and alot of them seem to be with the wiring, and yet they are not accountable. My mother and my son could have easily been killed in this fire, so I am just to assume that Chrysler is going to do nothing until they have alot of dead bodies on their hands, as with Ford? I have alot of trouble with this picture!.

See all problems of the 1999 Dodge RAM 🔎.

Dog electrocuted due to possible faulty wiring harness, notice received after incident about potential hazard.

Vehicle sitting in driveway after being used all day. Owner was alerted to problem when the horn on the vehicle started blowing. Owner went outside of home to see why the horn blowing and found the vehicle on fire. Called fire department. Fire of vehicle fully involved when the fire department arrived and extinguished the fire.

No summary listed for this vehicle.

Headights on low beam headlights became inoperative upon tilting steering wheel downward. Raising tilt wheel, the headlights became operative. Position of steering wheel did not effect highbeams, only the lowbeams. Upon removal of the steering wheel column cowl, it became apparent that the lowbeam wire to the dimming switch had become chaffed by the movement of the tilt assembly, melting the wire insulation, and creating a high resistance connection to the steering column, strong enough for the wire to part but not allowing the amount of current flow needed to blow the fuse to the lighting circuit overcurrent device. Because the vehicle is 12,000 miles past warranty ( 36 months/36,000 miles) the selling dealer refused to treat the problem as factory defect and stated over the telephone that the problem was mine and that I would most likely be responsible for the repair. It is my position that wiring harnesses in such a limited amount of time should never short-out or become so dangerously defective, creating a possible fire hazard, headlight failure, and worst case air bag deployment while driving. Thank you for your time. . . Marshall searles.

While vehicle was parked 3 hours, fire started in dashboard in area of light switch harness. According to fire department, electrical fire, leased vehicle, reported by michelle machor, motorist ins CO, 800-876-2538.

When heater is on dashboard would become very hot. Took vehicle to dealership, and was informed by mechanic that problem was with radio, which was defective. It was replaced. Dashboard problem reappeared again. Kept taking vehicle back to dealership for dashboard problem, and again radio was replaced. Nothing else was checked for cause of overheating dashboard.

See all problems of the 2001 Dodge RAM 🔎.