I rarely use 4wd and at around 90,000 I noticed slight play in the inner CVs and a progressing vibration at around 65 mph. After closer inspection, and thousands of miles later I discovered that the CVs mounted to the intermediate axle shaft via snap ring and splines, versus the more usual bolted together method. Due to the constant downward pull on the CV, the splines had eventually worn and stripped.

I firmly believe this is a design flaw and if this condition goes untreated long enough it will destroy the front differential. Instead of blowing money on new parts that are sure to fail in the exact manner, weld your CV axle to your intermediate axle shaft to marry these as one part. The passenger bump stop must be cut to reinstall the welded axle but that's far better then spending 500+/- bucks on new parts that will fail again. Just my 2 cents....

On 8/14/2014 I left work and headed to a gas station right around the corner when, out of nowhere, I heard a loud whining noise then a loud bang and the truck lurched. It was similar to the jerking that happens when you let out the clutch while in 1st gear on a stick shift car without giving it enough gas. As soon as I stopped and put the vehicle in park, the clanging and banging stopped and the engine was idling perfectly smoothly as if nothing had happened. I knew I was in trouble and that something catastrophic had occurred, however, in my wildest dreams I could not have predicted what I saw when I got out of the truck. My drive shaft separated from the rear differential, lying on the floor!! 90% of my driving is done on the highway at anywhere from 55-70 MPH. That very morning I had driven to work with my nephew (who was working with me for the summer) in the vehicle with me. Fortunately, I needed gas and was driving very slowly on a not very busy street (a rarity in Miami) or the results of this catastrophic failure could have been tragic. While waiting for the tow truck, I decided to Google "2005 Dodge Ram 1500 drive shaft separates from rear differential" on my phone and I almost fell over when I saw the results. About a month earlier, in early July, NHTSA opened an investigation into this EXACT occurrence!!!! Needless to say, I filed a report with them and with Dodge. ATTENTION DODGE: YOU NEED TO ISSUE A RECALL FOR THIS ISSUE BEFORE SOMEONE GETS KILLED!!!!!

No, I'm not going to rant or use profanity, but I can say what happened was the pinion gear nut backed off causing the pinion gear to fall back into the axle causing an extensive amount of damage to the rear end, so much so that even the rear axle housing had to be replaced. The reason why this happened was that there was no lock tight fluid applied to the nut, which in turn caused the nut to back off. When I questioned the service man that worked on it he said " it didn't say in the spec's to apply it". :-o I said to him when you bolt on the heads to an engine block you wouldn't use locktite on the bolts before you torq them down if it didn't say in the spec's to do so? His answer was simply "No" , and these are the so called Dodge service men we have working on our vehicles!!!!!! I retired from doing my own work on my vehicle, but after hearing that!!! I'm the only one who does repairs and maintenance on my vehicles. Lol

We are a mopar family all the way and even our 5 year old appreciates the power of our 2005, 1500, hemi dodge ram but on Monday, August 19th, 2013 we were an hour away from home coming back from vacation when all of a sudden, I hear my husband start swearing under his breath (we had our 5,3 and 18 month old sitting comfortably in the back in their respective car seats and boosters). Then I hear this bang and this strange flapping/whacking sound and I say, "omg - did we just blow a tire?" as the car starts smoking from up front to accompany the loud sounds coming from below our vehicle. My husband, being the very capable and competent driver he is, safely but quickly maneuvered us from the far left lane of busy hgwy 90 east bound at exit 44 right before a potentially even more dangerous on ramp, 3 lanes over to the shoulder as semis and other vehicles zoomed by us at at least 70 mph. After we came to a complete stop, we get out of our vehicle to find the drive shaft laying on the ground. Apparently, the driveshaft fell out from under the rear diff, spun around and split the transfer case in half and twisted the front drive shaft. Now we are wondering how much more damage has been done and after a brief look, our mechanic has already estimated about 3grand just in parts alone if we can find them used.... Looking back now, I can only thank some supernatural being that we, my husband myself and 3 small children are not all laying in the morgue waiting for tiny caskets....... What needs to be done to fix this problem!!! This is a very serious and life endangering issue!

Was on my way to the grocery store with my wife. After a few blocks from my house I felt a tug from the truck as if someone had pulled me from behind. All of a sudden I hear a big band under the truck as if I ran over some time of metal object and it kept banging. I immediately stopped in the the middle of the street and found that my center drive shaft had disconnected from the differential. How can this happen to a truck like this? It has a reputation of being able to haul and to pull. From the time I bought it I have never needed to haul or tow anything, yet the differential failed after six years? Not very confident about this truck's reliability.