Add yet another complaint that Dodge refuses to take ownership of and does not take public safety serious. If Dodge sees that the repair is costly they will do any and everything they can to avoid paying for an engineering blunder on their behalf. Apparently the potential for loss of human life doesn't seem to be of concern to Dodge unless they are forced to take action because of a government mandate or the huge painful lawsuits.

Now for the safety issue. When my windshield started fogging up on a rainy night I turned on defrost and no air what so ever came out of the defrost vents to the windshield. This situation caused a very dangerous situation, we were on a curvy back road in an unfamiliar area and it was pouring down rain, with on coming traffic headlights shining on the windshield I could barely see out of the windshield. I turned the a/c to high and eventually the windshield defrosted but it took about five minutes to do so. Very scary and dangerous situation.

I am a mechanic, I did some research online and found that Dodge has a design flaw in their HVAC blend design with the plastic coupling stripping or shearing from the blend door. The actuator motor torque breaks off the plastic couplings stop and then shears the coupling from the blend door. Once the coupling shears the blend door is no longer able route any blower air to the windshield for defrost. After doing some trouble shooting I was able to confirm that I am yet another victim to the absolutely inexcusable design screw up. Note, there are five doors in the HVAC box routing the air various directions depending on control commands.

I called the local Dodge dealer, informed them of the problem, they gave the same song and dance reply. There are no recalls for the blend doors and nothing that can be done since my truck is way out of warranty. They told me to call the dodge customer support( or is lack of customer support) number. I called them, same song and dance reply again. I explained the safety ramifications for the blend door failures, but they could care less, I was floored about their lack of concern.

This is just one more thing pushing a brand loyal customer to buy someone else's product. I love my truck but I can't afford to keep fixing all the things that keep going wrong with it. When there are obvious factory issues (horribly cracked up dash for example) and chrysler corp. refuses to do anything about it do they expect us to continue to buy their vehicles? I have had even worse luck with our 2003 Grand Caravan that I bought almost new. I would put it in the lemon category (transmission, cpu, entire brake system, torque converter, power steering, unknown vibration even after new tires and so on and all with only 90,000 miles on it currently). I am done buying Chrysler corp products (except for my old muscle cars), in fact I picked up our Toyota Corolla yesterday. Chrysler corp. needs to start over and completely rethink how they do business as well as the engineering that goes into their vehicles. If they can't maybe it is time to close the doors.

2002 Dodge Ram 1500 Quad Cab. Purchased new in Dec 2001. I am on my 3rd A/C condenser fan, my 2nd blower motor, and every single power lock has stopped working. The connector in the steering column melted, and on 2 trips over 300 miles each, the truck was under 20,000 miles, the engine light came on and the engine RPM increased dramatically. Once I stopped, the transmission slipped and I could barely make it through an intersection on the service road. Now the engine light is on, and I have a internal control power module check sum error problem. I purchased the extended warranty which covered 3 of the power locks, 1 of the A/C condenser fans, and the melted connector. I replaced the blower motor fan myself ($100+ for the fan through the dealership). The 3rd condenser fan set me back $500, dealership quote for another power lock installed is over $250, and I hate to see what the computer checksum error will cost. I don't think I will buy another Dodge Ram.