Other speed control problem on the 1998 Dodge RAM 1500
1 fire 2 injuries 3 of the 12 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 speed control problem gets reported
There are 12 reports of other speed control problem on the 1998 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 78,000 miles. It is the 13th most-reported problem on this model year.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| — | — | 78,500 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 fire and 2 an injury 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 $250–$2,000 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.
This mode is classified as critical, which means a failure can leave the car unable to stop, steer, or stay out of the way of traffic. It is weighted accordingly in the risk score.
The same failure on other years
The same failure is reported on 16 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 1997, at a median of 40 miles, and latest on the 2000 at 135,000 miles.
By volume the 2012 carries the most reports, with 18; the 1998 has 12. 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.
After shifting down while going up a hill the vehicle continued to accelerate. Could not stop completely with brakes. Had to turn engine off, but by then brakes would hardly work do to heat from trying to slow down. Throttle plate was stuck. Then had it stick in passing gear while in cruise, but this time it released when brake was applied. Dealer said it was just probably carbon in the breaking loose. *nlm
My son, william, was driving our 1998 dodge pickup on highway 78 when it began to lunge. Since we had to put 2 transmissions in his previous dodge pickup, he thought something was wrong with this transmission. He started to pull off the road and looked in his rearview mirror for traffic when he saw flames and smoke coming from between the cab and bed. He hurriedly pulled off the road and when he opened the drivers door flames englufed the cab. He had to go out through the fire. About 1 minute after he and his passengers emerged from the pickup, it exploded. The only thing left of the truck was what was metal. Will had second degree burns to his face,ears,neck, hands and arms. He spent one night in the hospital. I contacted dodge and was told there would be an investagator look at the truck. I was then told by dodge since the pickup burned totally there was no way to determine they were at fault. After looking on the internet I found that there seems to be quite a number of fires in dodge vehicles. *ak
While driving at 60 MPH vehicle suddenly accelerated by itself between 70-75 MPH. The brakes were applied but failed to slow down the vehicle. Then, consumer turned the ignition off, and continued depressing the brake pedal which slowed the vehicle down. Two days later, the same failure occurred while driving at 30 MPH and vehicle accelerated to 40-45 MPH. Consumer immediately put vehicle in neutral and turned the ignition off. Vehicle revved. Vehicle was towed to the dealership, and 3 separate tests were done, but no failure code was found. *ak
Also reported on the 1998 Dodge RAM 1500
Other body or interior problem
Other powertrain problem
Seat belt or retractor failure
Other electrical problem
ABS module or sensor failure
Other brake problem
How far this goes
This page is kept out of search results because 12 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 12 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 speed control problem happen on the 1998 Dodge RAM 1500?
Across 6 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 80,000 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 speed control problem on the 1998 Dodge RAM 1500?
12 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 7.8 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