I’m currently in the market for a used 4x4 pickup, crew cab, V8, $20k or less. I’m currently considering the Ram line, as I’m liking the styling a bit more than the Chevy/ford. Trying to keep mileage below 160k. I’ve been using smitecar.com to weed out the good/bad years but was wondering how good this site may be and if anyone could recommend another information source. Thanks!
In the market
- Thread starter Shadz
- Start date
Fightnfire
Moderator
I know the Ram/Hemi has a few years to avoid. From my memory they're 2012, 2013, 2014 & 2016. I'm not a Dodge/RAM guy but my father in law is, his 2014 just had lifters among other things go and he traded in on a new 2023 RAM.
Next on my list or maybe first would be service records, accident history, and number of owners.
Some of the guys on here are much more into RAM's than I am and could give you a better answer on what year to avoid or why to avoid. I feel like a truck with that many miles should be good honestly almost any year. If it was going to have an issue, it would have.
Next on my list or maybe first would be service records, accident history, and number of owners.
Some of the guys on here are much more into RAM's than I am and could give you a better answer on what year to avoid or why to avoid. I feel like a truck with that many miles should be good honestly almost any year. If it was going to have an issue, it would have.
Yes, I’m aware of some of the bad years. The site I’ve been referencing is saying for the fourth generation (‘09-‘18), the worse years were 14, 15 & 16, then 13 is an “ok” year and the others were the best years. I’m also aware of the Hemi-tick, which is the lifter wear issue caused by the fuel management system that shuts off cylinders for better gas mileage.
I also agree that if it’s over 100k miles, it probably would have had an issue already and should be listed on the CARFAX for something serious.
I own a 2011 Ram and I wouldn't hesitate on any of those years. I mean it's a Stellantis product so quality may not be as high as GM/Ford but it also means you should be paying less for the equivalent configuration. No "Toyota tax". I imagine that CR/JD Power numbers are lower than the others but with the millions of trucks sold, does it really matter? Buy what you like and want to drive now. Although, I'm not sure why the 14-16 years are called out as worse than other years anyway? And I surely wouldn't ever hesitate over the lifter issue. It'll go bad or it won't and if you are concerned with it, you just can't buy a Ram as every single one is susceptible. I had an '03 and now an '11. My father had an '09, '12, and '20. His were sold w/ 50K or less. My '03 at a 110K and my '11 has 150K and still going. His '12 had the exhaust leak tick and my '11 has confirmed lifter tick it still runs, doesn't bother me. When it dies, it dies. Always used for truck things like towing and hauling up to 6k. All of them otherwise were fine with normal wear items and occasional "shit happens, fix it". But no tranny issues or any repair over $800 that I can recall. Only issue I have is body rot, but hey, Pennsylvania.......
And I would never trust Carfax for anything. They are like Covid tests, not many false pos, but lots of false negatives. I had clean Carfax for a vehicle I was buying but unbeknownst to me, it had been totaled. And I even got a clean new title. Then 5 years later, I went to trade it in, and the Carfax suddenly showed "totaled". No dealer would take it, so I sold it privately.
There is no factual data to support the claim that MDS causes the lifter issue. In fact, it's the opposite, hemi engines without MDS, such as the manual 6.4s in the challenger, still experience the same failure rate (relative to percentage sold)
100k miles is not a marker, they'll fail anywhere from 30k miles to 230+k miles.
If you can find a truck that was serviced regularly, at less than 7500k miles then that is your best bet. CARFAX doesn't show private repairs or many local garage shop repairs.
2016 is roughly when the lifters were last updated, the years 2009 to 2016 are more susceptible as far as we can tell. But we're all guessing here as FCA hasn't said anything.
Fightnfire
Moderator
That's why I don't buy the bs lines about a bad batch of lifters in the GM engines. Too widespread and over too many years. More likely an oil supply issue in the DFM engines the pressure changes and qty needed is intense and rapid. (For GM) Sorry to mildly hijack the thread.
Not a "bad batch", just poor vendor quality. There is no design flaw in the engine itself, you only ever find 1 or 2 broken lifters in one engine. How does one lifter fail whereas the others don't, if it's a design flaw in the engine? How do many guys run their hemis well past 250k to 300k with 0 issues? It's not a design flaw.
Edit: sorry, read your response wrong, you're talking about the GM lifters and not the Hemi lifters. I haven't been following the GM engines as much so I don't have any real thoughts on that. It's just sad that V8's in general, across brands, are no longer as ultra strong and reliable as I feel they were in my youth.
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Blue Oval 5.0
Active member
Not a Ram guy either and these may be too new for your price range but my father had 2017 and 2020 and while the first one was very sound, the 2020 had the Hemi tick and a water leak from 3rd brake light. Overall, he was happy and is ordering a 2025.
It seems that, for the most part, you can’t really go wrong with a f150, silverado/sierra or ram 1500, as long as it’s been serviced. Other than maybe the 5.4L fords that had the spark plug issues. Also, as I stated before, if there was a major issue, I would expect it to show up, statistically speaking, before 100k miles.
Now for towing….I’m looking at eventually towing a travel trailer. Possibly up to 26’, with a gvwr of about 6,000 lbs. Now, I know there is a lot of factors to consider when calculating towing capacity, but, generally speaking, would the Ram 1500 Hemi 4wd have any issues towing this?
That can very easily be a design flaw of the engine or the lifter. Sure, some go 300K, but others fail under 50K. It doesn't need to fail 100% of the time to be considered a design flaw. Look at many recalls for bad bolts, tires or harnesses, etc. They recalled them all and replaced them all. Not because all of them failed but enough did, and they figured it would be better to replace them all than take a chance. And that's just it with the lifters, has the number of failures exceeded the point that Ram does something? Now if these failures caused accidents and somebody was injured or killed? You bet there would be a fix in place.
The specific failure mechanism of the Hemi lifter issue would need to be identified, which, as far as I know, no one has done yet. Lots of speculation, but nothing concrete. And honestly, I would lose all faith in Ram if it were in fact, just "bad" lifters from supply. That's BS. If you are getting that many bad parts, you get a new supplier because that's unacceptable.
That it will do easily. I have an older Ram that can only tow 7500 and I towed 6k often. Newer models have towing numbers well over 10K so 6k is fine. You still need a WD hitch when towing over 5k though.
You're right, you really can't go wrong. It comes down to which cabin you prefer, what grill you like better, etc. Anyone one of them can break and they all do. Buying used, I'm more concerned with how it was treated and maintained than anything else.
Fightnfire
Moderator
No prob, but the point I was making about GM engines I believe has a similar issue with the RAM Hemi. There was a breakdown video by a mechanic on YouTube somewhere that I watched a year or two ago he was the first one that started talking about how complicated it is to provide oil at such a high pressure and at such a low pressure so rapidly. His theory was there was a design flaw in the oil pump and system in general that starved the lifters which caused them to fail. This was a few years back and at the same time the company that provided the lifters for GM said that in their testing on failed lifters their part had not failed and they also alluded to an oiling issue.
That made a lot more sense to me than a bad batch of lifters.
That also speaks to the theories about on time or early oil changes and always keeping your oil topped off, that seems to keep the lifter issue mostly at bay, which is concerning with the GM engines because they seem to eat oil at a high rate, Tim has covered that in some of his videos. I'm not sure if the RAM hemi also has any oil consumption issues. I was surprised in my truck when only about halfway through my recommended oil change I got an low oil light from the truck and since then I just keep a few quarts in the truck and check it regularly. I had been on a couple hundred mile trip with the trailer before.
Fightnfire
Moderator
That's a bulletin from Melling, The company GM was sourcing their lifters from. It's from 2018 because there were lifter issues with the AFM engines as well and they responded with this to get in front of anyone blaming them for bad lifters.
It's old and not the newer motors with DFM but the oil theories are the same.
A design flaw that takes out one random lifter cannot leave the other 15 in immaculate condition under the same engine/driving conditions. That's not how a block design flaw would manifest. Nor would a lubrication issue.
The only thing that explains why 1 random lifter leaves the chat whereas many millions don't (16 lifters per hemi with millions of hemis sold) under identical/similar conditions is that there is a problem with the lifter itself.
You're example of the failed bolt is kinda the point; in this case the failing bolt is the failing lifter.
I don't think using oil is a very common problem in the hemi, I certainly don't see it mentioned anywhere in the forums (I can't remember seeing it all to be honest but I could be wrong). I know my engine doesn't move a MM on the dipstick even after 7500 miles its still at the full mark, but I maintain my truck myself and run the best oil out there as well.
Different oils can certainly make a difference, you may want to check into more premium oils from HPL, Redline etc if you're just running dealer oil.
It can most definitely do that. Why not? You can have identical manufacturing defects on a parts and some will fail, others will not. When the system is "weak", it's just more prone to failing but not a sure thing.
The total amount is unknown. You've seen the videos. An engine finally gets the head pulled over a mis-fire and yep, the lifter is bad. But in all those videos, it was never just one. Every video shows multiple cam lobes wearing down. It was just the one that got bad enough to cause the misfire.
Exactly! If it were, like you say, a batch of bad parts, they could replace them with good parts. But they didn't because they knew that wouldn't fix it. They didn't put more suspect bolts back in either.
Mine never did but as she ages, she burns about a quart between oil changes. Still not bad.
A block design issue would not just kill one random lifter. It's never the same lifter, any one can go. You need to explain how the lack of lubrication is doing that. There is nothing repeatable in these failures, nothing that you can say" if you do X, Y, and Z" you will get the failure. It's completely random and this is a major flag as to what the problem really is.
It can't be lack of lubrication if 15 other lifters are in perfect condition (relative to age)
It can't be lack of lubrication if one engine fails at 32k and another runs to 300k without failures, under very similar conditions (light passenger duty).
It can't be idle hours if one truck idles for 300 hours and has a failure and one truck has 2000+ idle hours with no failures.
And so on.
There are tons of reports with just one bad lifter. If there are shavings in the engine, light damage to other lifters and the cam and other spots is also possible/probable just due to the shavings floating around from the first lifter.