Two problems related to defogger heater have been reported for the 2002 Dodge Ram 1500. The most recently reported issues are listed below.
Heater core fails on cooling line fitting coming out of it. This causes leakage and due to hvac design and newness of make it is only possible to get the part from the dealer and the part itself is cheaply manufactured and appears to be cheaply designed. When it does finally fail at the fitting one will run the defroster and the windows will milk over in cold weather causing severe visibility problems. Not to mention one is breathing in gaseous hot coolant that Dodge uses which itself breaks down into an acid in open air at high temperatures.
The contact owns a 2002 Dodge Ram 1500. The heater core has been replaced four times. When the contact activates the heater, the heater core fails. The design of the heater core does not allow flexibility or any other movement. The heater core is currently being replaced again. The total cost for each repair was $850. The dealer had to strip down the entire instrument panel in order to reach the heater core. The failure mileage was 20,000 and current mileage was 104,000.