I bought this truck new in 2008 with sole purpose being a safe vehicle for me and my kids in our mountain weather. It has been well maintained and aside from the repeated problems with the particulate filter and resulting damage to turbo booster (all covered under warranty) it has been fine.

This problem started out of nowhere...

At idle I have 800rpm. From stop it goes up to 2000rpm at 40mph just to get to 2nd gear. The transition from 1st to 2nd is almost violent, very rough and loud to say the least. From that point it will not shift up any farther, just perpetually stuck in 2nd. At 50mph I'm still stuck in 2nd and have 2700rpm.

All other dials (oil pressure, temp etc) look normal when this is happening. The check engine light may or may not come on when this issue is happening. At first the problem was sporadic, happened only once a week or so, now its every time I get behind the wheel and has become so bad that I can't get on the highway and have to just take short little side street trips if I need to go anywhere.

I am female with two kids ( I don't know jack about cars) and can't afford to get taken by an unscrupulous mechanic or the local Dodge dealer (bad history of doing that to people in my area).

Please help if you have any answers, thanks!