AtWhatMileage
Wheels · 21 owner reports

Other wheel or tire problem on the 1997 Dodge RAM 2500

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.

Reports of this failure 21
With an odometer reading 6
Reports per 1,000 built 14 per 1,000
Filed below 36,000 miles 17%
Mention a crash, fire or injury 0
Typical repair $200–$1,500
What it means when it happens High
Rank among this year's problems 1st

When other wheel or tire problem gets reported

There are 21 reports of other wheel or tire problem on the 1997 Dodge RAM 2500, 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 60,000 miles. It is the 1st most-reported problem on this model year.

The whole distribution

Percentiles of the 6 odometer readings owners gave.
10th25thMedian 75th90th
— — 111,101 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

Putting it right typically runs $200–$1,500 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 2010, at a median of 15,000 miles, and latest on the 1996 at 170,000 miles.

By volume the 2001 carries the most reports, with 23; the 1997 has 21. 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.

While driving left front tire lost its shape. Consumer stopped and changed the tire. Later, the tire was taken to the dealer and it was replaced. Currently,the right and left rear tires were showing the same defect. *ak three of the four tires had broken belts. The tires had 18000 miles on them and the tread was at 55-60%. *nm

18,000 miles NHTSA complaint 499634 filed 2004-10-04

While driving at 30 MPH heard a loud bang the rear end of the pickup rose 4-6". Upon looking in the rear view mirror the spare tire had fallen from its storage location under the bed of the truck. Upon inspection the bracket that holds the tire assembly had corroded and one ear (half) of the bracket buckled and allowed the tire to fall.*ak

109,500 miles NHTSA complaint 516582 filed 2005-01-12

The spare tire on my 97 dodge pickup truck fell off the truck from its storage holder causing damage to the horse trailer I was towing, resulting in a flat tire on the trailer. Fortunately no other vehicles were involved. The cause was the spare tire holder rusting to the point where it just let the tire loose. *tr

158,070 miles NHTSA complaint 643643 filed 2007-10-25

Also reported on the 1997 Dodge RAM 2500

Other powertrain problem

20 reports median 82k

Other electrical problem

18 reports median 225k

Other brake problem

17 reports

Other body or interior problem

15 reports median 163k

Other suspension problem

14 reports median 19k

ABS module or sensor failure

11 reports median 164k

How far this goes

This page is kept out of search results because 21 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 21 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 wheel or tire problem happen on the 1997 Dodge RAM 2500?

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 wheel or tire problem on the 1997 Dodge RAM 2500?

21 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 14 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