AtWhatMileage
Glass · 11 owner reports

Other visibility problem on the 2008 Dodge RAM 1500

1 injury 1 of the 11 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.

Reports of this failure 11
With an odometer reading 9
Reports per 1,000 built 0.2 per 1,000
Filed below 36,000 miles 22%
Mention a crash, fire or injury 1
Typical repair $150–$1,400
What it means when it happens Moderate
Rank among this year's problems 16th

When other visibility problem gets reported

Owners of the 2008 Dodge RAM 1500 report other visibility problem at a median of 70,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 40,000 miles and a quarter after 95,000 miles, from 9 reports that carried an odometer reading.

A part like this is normally expected to survive 75,000 miles. It is the 16th most-reported problem on this model year.

The mileage distribution

The reported range runs from 200 miles at the tenth percentile to 100,000 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 100,386 miles across the middle 80% of reports.

A spread this wide points at use rather than design. Towing, climate, service history and city mileage all move a failure like this, so the median is a weak guide to any individual car.

22% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.

The whole distribution

Percentiles of the 9 odometer readings owners gave.
10th25thMedian 75th90th
214 miles 40,000 miles 69,000 miles 95,000 miles 100,600 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 an injury is 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 $150–$1,400 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 15 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2012, at a median of 10,000 miles, and latest on the 2000 at 195,000 miles.

By volume the 2006 carries the most reports, with 35; the 2008 has 11. 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.

What owners wrote

Verbatim from NHTSA complaint narratives, trimmed for length. The mileage is the one the owner gave.

Tl*the contact owns a 2008 dodge ram 1500. The contact found several defects with her vehicle, such as scratches in the driver's side mirror, a plugged tire, a hole drilled in the passenger door, the hood is off center, the frame and insulation can be seen from the rear window, and the molding on the passenger side is missing. She stated that all the failures have been repaired, except the drill hole and the rear window. The contact is concerned that she will have major mechanical failures with her vehicle after a year. The current mileage was 3,025 and failure mileage was 71.

71 miles NHTSA complaint 676452 filed 2008-07-02

Tl*the contact owns a 2008 dodge ram 1500. The contact stated that the front windshield, rear glass, and side doors have dirty bubbles in between the lamination of the glass. The vehicle had just been purchased and was returned to the dealer. They reordered new glass to be installed; however, they were worse than the original. The chrysler representative arrived, but failed to do anything. The failure mileage was 250. Updated 11-25-08 *bf updated 12/02/08. *jb

250 miles NHTSA complaint 695171 filed 2008-11-05

The wiper arm linkage from motor to wiper base became dislodged. It is a ball-socket type linkage. It disconnected and caused permanent loss of passenger side wiper. This caused a decrease in visibility.

95,000 miles NHTSA complaint 777504 filed 2010-03-29

Also reported on the 2008 Dodge RAM 1500

Airbag inflator rupture

81 reports median 60k

Other steering problem

46 reports median 67k

Other fuel system problem

32 reports median 82k

Other electrical problem

31 reports median 35k

Other engine problem

30 reports median 67k

How far this goes

Complaints are voluntary, so 11 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 visibility problem happen on the 2008 Dodge RAM 1500?

Across 9 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 70,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 40,000 miles and a quarter after 95,000 miles. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.

How common is other visibility problem on the 2008 Dodge RAM 1500?

11 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 0.2 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