Other powertrain problem on the 1996 Dodge RAM 1500
1 crash 1 injury 1 death 3 of the 31 reports for this failure mention a crash, a fire, an injury or a death. Those are the owner's words on the complaint form, not a verified finding, and one report can mention more than one.
Only 6 reports for this mode came with an odometer reading, which is too few for percentiles to mean anything. The page is here because someone linked to it; treat the figures as anecdotes, and see the full report for this year instead.
When other powertrain problem gets reported
There are 31 reports of other powertrain problem on the 1996 Dodge RAM 1500, 6 with a mileage attached. That is too few to place the failure on the odometer with any confidence.
A part like this is normally expected to survive 92,000 miles. It is the 2nd most-reported problem on this model year.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| — | — | 110,000 miles | — | — |
Read the 10th percentile as “one report in ten arrived this early”. Exact figures are shown in this table because it is the table of record; everywhere else on the site they are rounded to the precision the sample can carry.
What a percentile can and cannot tell you here
These five numbers describe the readings owners gave, in order. The median is the middle one: half the reports arrived below it. The 10th and 90th are the edges of the bulk of the distribution, and the distance between them is the part worth reading. A tight spread — say 70,000 to 95,000 miles — points at something that wears out on a schedule, and the schedule is knowable. A wide one, 20,000 to 190,000, points at a fault that hits some cars and never troubles others, which means the mileage on the listing in front of you tells you very little about your odds.
What these figures are not is a survival curve. Every reading here comes from a car whose owner filed a complaint, so the sample contains only failures: it cannot say what share of the fleet made it past 150,000 miles untouched, because those owners had nothing to report. Nor is the mileage the moment of failure — it is the odometer reading as recalled at the time of filing, which may be weeks later and is sometimes rounded to the nearest ten thousand by the person typing it.
Percentiles are shown at all only once 8 readings exist for the vehicle and mode. Below that the middle of a handful of numbers is noise wearing a decimal point, so the figures are withheld rather than dressed up.
What happens, and what it costs
Of these reports, 1 a crash, 1 an injury and 1 a fatality are mentioned. Owners write their own complaints and the agency does not verify them, so read this as what the reports say happened rather than as a confirmed count.
Putting it right typically runs $400–$4,500 at an independent US shop. That range is an editorial estimate held in this site's failure-mode catalogue, not a figure from NHTSA, and it is a repair cost rather than a diagnosis cost.
The same failure on other years
The same failure is reported on 17 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2011, at a median of 30,000 miles, and latest on the 2005 at 112,000 miles.
By volume the 2005 carries the most reports, with 385; the 1996 has 31. A mode that appears across most years of a model is usually a design choice rather than a bad batch.
If one year stands out to the left, that is the year to avoid; if the whole line sits at a similar mileage, this is wear rather than a defect in one production run.
Tick median reported mileage Solid middle half of reports Faint 10th to 90th percentile Colour how bad the failure is when it happens
What owners wrote
Verbatim from NHTSA complaint narratives, trimmed for length. The mileage is the one the owner gave.
I purchased the truck in 1996 new from parks motors in augusta, since that time I have had the transmission rebuild 3 times for the same problem, the transmission will not shift out of 1 or 2 gear or if it does it takes high rpms to do it. It was determined that a seal in the upper half of the transmission was faulty from the factory. The first time I had this rebuilt I covered the cost myself because of the low mileage warranty the second time I had this rebuilt chrysler agreed to pay for half of the problem because they knew it had been rebuilt once before and failed a 2nd time, the third time I paid to have it rebuilt out of pocket, I am now at the point of needing it rebuilt for a 4th time my truck has 120,000 miles on it now and I have yet to see a recall on this problem I have talked to many people who have had the same problem and have also been to many web sites describing the same problems I am having, the transmission also has a 5 mile an hour difference than what it should be. My incident date is not exact as this problem has occurred many times now over a 10 year period, I have also reported this before but never had…
Normal driving into mountains and auto transmission shifted out of overdrive and would not shift back, even down hill. Checked fluid and very hot and started to smelled burnt. Has been shifting hard. *tr
Also reported on the 1996 Dodge RAM 1500
Other body or interior problem
ABS module or sensor failure
Other engine problem
Other wheel or tire problem
Other suspension problem
Complete transmission failure
How far this goes
This page is kept out of search results because 31 reports is not enough to publish percentiles from. It stays reachable because somebody looking at this exact car would rather see the reports than be told there are none.
Complaints are voluntary, so 31 is a floor and not a count of affected cars. Mileages are typed in by owners and cluster on round numbers. And the mode itself is assigned by software reading the complaint text, which is reliable in bulk and fallible one report at a time.
Questions this page answers
At what mileage does other powertrain problem happen on the 1996 Dodge RAM 1500?
Across 6 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 110,000 miles. A quarter were filed before — and a quarter after —. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.
How common is other powertrain problem on the 1996 Dodge RAM 1500?
31 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 20 per 1,000 vehicles. Complaints are voluntary, so this is a floor rather than a count of affected cars.
What this is and is not. These are the mileages at which owners chose to complain to a federal agency, which is not the same as the mileage at which the part fails on every car. It skews toward failures that happened outside warranty, cost real money, or frightened someone. It is still the only public dataset that carries failure mileage at all, and the shape of a few hundred readings is informative even when a single one is not. Methodology · JSON · this failure on other cars
Source Owner complaints and recall records published by the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, model years 1996–2027 Figures rebuilt Published by AtWhatMileage How every figure is computed