I've got a 07 Power Wagon that i bought brand new in May of 07. It has 37k miles on it. for the past few weeks I've been getting this violent jerking in the front end when I hit a bump in the road at certain speeds. Its so bad that I almost had a wreck involving 2 cars and a Semi the other day. The only way to stop it is to slow down or stop...which is hard to do on the interstate. But I took it to the dealer and have found out it needs a new Sterring Linkage Damper and 4 new tires. Of course the warranty is gone since I have 37k miles on it. They want $625.00 to fix the damper and of course $800-1300 for 4 new tires. My question to you guys is should this have happened at 37k miles, I could see after say 75k or 100k things happening from wear and tear. If you were in my shoes what would you do??? Let them fix it and go on, try to get it fixed elsewhere or raise hell with dodge to get them to fix a new vehicle?????

Check your tire pressure, rotate them and see what happens. I have yet to see any dealer fix this problem on the first shot. It has been in most cases the tires from what I have seen. Are they the tire that came on it?

I agree with the rotate and tire pressure! BUT the stock steering dampner SUCKS, esp when you USE the truck, Im not a fan of the stock dampner and Ive found the SUPERLIFT dual stablizer settup to be the best by far for the 4wd trucks, Pro comp dampner works decent we have it on 1 of our big chevys on 8" lift and 35's works great, anything bigger than a 36" tire i always put on 2 dampners, go to 4 wheel parts, or an offroad supply and get another dampner, dont go with the rancho cause they wont last as long as this one did. I know about the death wobble, had this issue with doing dana 60 conversions on 1/2 ton trucks and 2 dampners seems to have helped the problem. But 625 would buy you something alot better that will last longer, and keep you SAFE!

Death wobble comes from something being bad in the front end or tire problems. The stablizer will only help to cover up a problem. It would cause the kind of problem you are having.
If the front end is setup correctly you will not even need one.

My DW went away after getting new tires..

I had BFG's and went with Nittos

i eventually figured it out on my 04 CTD... after rotating/balancing the tires again (35's at the time), new tie rods, lower ball joints, it ended up being the track hard bar in my case.... if i was you, check out KORE suspensions for their fix. A little more expensive, but worth it for peace of mind. Also, check the pitman arm and power steering box to make sure there is not excessive play. I even played with toe-in a little to decrease sensitivity.

http://koreperformance.com/dodge-ram-lift-kits/track-bar.htm

I had the same problem with my truck ..talked to a lot of people on this topic turns out the fix was cheaper then everyone was saying. The main cause is not enough mechanical caster. Our front wheels are almost directly in line with our axles from the factory . After I took mine in and had another alignment I had them apply as much caster as possible. my problem was gone at all speeds and all bumps. ..turns out our wheels have to be a little further out in front of our big solid front axles or on certain bumps at speed or the impact gets magified and grows making some pull over at times to regain control ..I know I have. This problem is exclusive to DR 2500 and 3500 trucks 1500s don't have this issue

This message has been edited. Last edited by: 5SpeedHemi,

Any truck that has a solid front axle the front needs to track wider than the rear. If the front was narrower it would be very hard to turn around a corner.
I bought an S-10 years ago somebody did a solid axle swap on. The guy couldn't figure out why it drove so bad. I bought it and did a lot of measurments and found the front axle two narrow.
I added a 2.5" spacer on each side to move the wheels out and it drove great after that.

That may of worked on a little S-10 but a wheel spacer on the front of a Ram 2500-3500 wouldn't last very long before failing from the sheer weight and pounding these trucks take...Many of these trucks including mine had the “Death Wobble” from brand new its not necessarily a worn suspension problem and a lot of the time is factory alignment problem. My dealerships brand new 2500 service truck had the same problem Many including mine were solved by adjusting the caster positive.. definitely worth a try before spending hundreds of dollars on new tires and suspension parts..one note unlike most cars there is not enough positive caster available on these rigs to cause wandering problems only 2 degrees at most.. if you don't own a DR 2500 or 3500 you have no idea how severe a safety problem this can be.

The only reason the front axle was made wider track is for offroad use not to be in the same rut 100% that was all that was designed for. Now these trucks have enough caster when stock height, when you start lifting them thats when the caster goes to hell, on leaf spring front suspension its easy to re alighn for caster by shimming up the perch, the coil axle is very different, but with any major lifts it throws things off, and I know how much of a saftey issue this is, esp when you have a truck lifted 18" and on the fwy, will put you on your lid real quick!

Id agree with 5speed on get an alignment or bring it to 4wheel parts or an offroad shop and pay them the 70$ diagnostic fee to check all that out!

quote:

Originally posted by 5SpeedHemi:
That may of worked on a little S-10 but a wheel spacer on the front of a Ram 2500-3500 wouldn't last very long before failing from the sheer weight and pounding these trucks take...Many of these trucks including mine had the “Death Wobble” from brand new its not necessarily a worn suspension problem and a lot of the time is factory alignment problem. My dealerships brand new 2500 service truck had the same problem Many including mine were solved by adjusting the caster positive.. definitely worth a try before spending hundreds of dollars on new tires and suspension parts..one note unlike most cars there is not enough positive caster available on these rigs to cause wandering problems only 2 degrees at most.. if you don't own a DR 2500 or 3500 you have no idea how severe a safety problem this can be.

I guess you have never seen my S-10. It was built on one ton axles with a whole bunch of after market stuff I installed running on 44" tires.
Just because somebody says S-10 deosn't mean it's little.

shouldnt ur life time warranty cover this.

quote:

shouldnt ur life time warranty cover this.

Suspension/alignment is not covered under the lifetime "power train" warranty. But being a 2500, i dont think the lifetime warranties were offered on those models. But if it is still under his 3/36, or 7/70 it sure as hell should be.

Great info on the caster fix though. sure wish i would of known that a few years ago.

yeah its not covered under the warranty at all. ive already gone that route with the dealership. i'm going to get the caster adjusted and get it realigned and see how that works.i'll let you know. ive been reading it happens on mainly lifted trucks. my truck is 100% stock...but being the power wagon package it has 2" of lift on it from the factory. but it was obvious the dealership didnt have a clue what was going on...i think they just keep replacing parts until they hope they find something that fixes it.