Ram Unreliable

Consumer Reports Ranks Ram Truck Near Bottom of List in Reliability
Ram Chief Blames In-Car Tech “Growing Pains”

Quote :

The Ram Truck brand was rated third to the last in the most recent Consumer Reports reliability study, primarily due to problems with the vehicles’ Chrysler-sourced touchscreen infotainment system. The study, which uses data provided by vehicle owners, revealed that nearly every domestic automobile brand has had a hard time with its respective in-vehicle electronics suite.

However, Ram brand chief Bob Hegbloom doesn’t seem overly concerned. Speaking with Automotive News, he said that the average pickup truck is 11 years old. Putting a person who hasn’t owned a new vehicle in over 10 years behind the wheel of a truck with brand-new technology is bound to cause some “growing pains,” as Hegbloom said.

We’ve experienced Chrysler’s Uconnect infotainment system firsthand, and we think it’s about as good as any other connectivity suite. We definitely think it works better than MyFord Touch, the system available in most Ford cars, trucks, and SUVs. Uconnect also seems to work about as good, if not slightly better than, Chevrolet’s MyLink and GMC’s IntelliLink, and it’s miles ahead of Cadillac’s clunky CUE infotainment system.



What makes the Consumer Reports study more confusing is the praise recently heaped upon Uconnect at the 2014 Texas Truck Rodeo, where it was named the best connectivity suite of any of the competitors.

Hegbloom’s statements make us wonder: Is Ram’s Uconnect system really that bad, or is it just a matter of brand-new owners getting used to the technology on their dashboards? We think it may be the latter, and if so, that’s a real shame, because Ram pickups and vans are better now than they ever have been. It would be sad to see a reliability ranking drop just because a consumer didn’t totally understand how to work the radio knobs.

Of course, people will inevitably argue that trucks are supposed to be work vehicles and that anything beyond an AM/FM radio is sacrilege in a pickup. There’s definitely less to go wrong in a stripped-down truck, so maybe those people are right.

Truck Trend

Ram unreliable? Not so much!

Consumer Reports is unreliable!

Major suckage with CR. An owner bringing in the vehicle for a bluetooth phone pairing that doesn't go well isn't in the same "problem" category as the transmission blowing to pieces.

Ford's, Chrysler's and GM's issues with infotainment speak to much of the lack of intuitiveness many of these systems exude. Apple is the model for intuitiveness, outside of iTunes software. Secondary the general public will first complain and never read or investigate what many times is following a process or procedure issue.

Ford did have major software and some hardware issues with MFT. The MFT 3.6.2 that's been out for near two year now. Mine and my wife's have been without issue since. Rumored that Ford is getting away with the next gen infotainment, rumblings of Blackberry were tossed in. Does Chrysler partner with anyone or do they write they're own?

Unreliable to me means it wont start or go when I put it in drive and push the throttle , not if the infotainment system is funky .

joemac wrote:

 Does Chrysler partner with anyone or do they write they're own?

Not sure if any other manufacturers use it but Ram uses UConnect which is shared throughout Fiat and Chrysler. From what I've read, it is as good as most other units, if not better...

http://www.digitaltrends.com/infotainment-system-reviews/chrysler-uconnect-review/

http://electronics360.globalspec.com/article/2195/chrysler-uconnect-touch-8-4n-infotainment-system-teardown

Seems Panasonic is the technology integrator that's involved in delivering the ready units.  No real mention of software development and integration sources.  Shares some components/architecture with Ford's MFT unit.

Not had a second's worth of trouble out of my uConnect in either Ram that had it. I paired it with my phone at the dealer, showed the salesman how to do it. Took about 15 seconds to do.