AtWhatMileage
Adas · 5 owner reports

Other speed control problem on the 2003 Dodge RAM 2500

3 crashes 3 of the 5 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 5 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 5
With an odometer reading 5
Reports per 1,000 built 0.0 per 1,000
Filed below 36,000 miles 60%
Mention a crash, fire or injury 3
Typical repair $250–$2,000
What it means when it happens Critical
Rank among this year's problems 24th

When other speed control problem gets reported

There are 5 reports of other speed control problem on the 2003 Dodge RAM 2500, 5 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 24th most-reported problem on this model year.

The whole distribution

Percentiles of the 5 odometer readings owners gave.
10th25thMedian 75th90th
— — 10,000 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, 3 a crash 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 $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 10 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2003, at a median of 10,000 miles, and latest on the 1997 at 110,000 miles.

By volume the 2004 carries the most reports, with 10; the 2003 has 5. 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.

When vehicle is in park and while idling it shifts into reverse. Also, vehicle accelerates on high. Then, it begins moving backwards and stops, once it comes into contact with an object.*ak

1,900 miles NHTSA complaint 439475 filed 2003-11-06

I've had this since the dodge c02 recall a while back. Happens maybe once a week, maybe twice, but not often enough to reproduce at the dealer. Here's the deal: you are accustomed to applying a certain amount of throttle to the vehicle during launch to maintain rpms. The engine runs up to 2000-3000 RPM when you expect it to be around 1200. The computer seems to be fueling up for launch, but does not when the rpms come up. After 5 seconds or so, it will suddenly "realize" that it made the mistake and starts to fuel, when you then have to push the pedal down quite a bit to maintain the rpms. I have had several close calls. Chrysler tech group can not reproduce problem so they are refusing to fix it. This problem will eventually result in an injury, as it is getting more severe as time goes on. Other users are reporting the same problem. For details please see the following thread http://www.turbodieselregister.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=84164. *jb

10,000 miles NHTSA complaint 452910 filed 2004-02-02

Tl* the contact owns a 2003 dodge ram 2500 quad cab. The contact stated that the vehicle was hooked to another vehicle in order to jump start the vehicle when the vehicle unexpectedly accelerated in revere and crashed into a building. The crash caused no injuries and the police were not contacted. The vehicle was not taken to the dealer and the manufacturer was not contacted. The vehicle was not repaired and the VIN was unavailable. The failure mileage was 178,000 and the current mileage was 178,500.

178,000 miles NHTSA complaint 901761 filed 2012-01-25

Also reported on the 2003 Dodge RAM 2500

Other body or interior problem

139 reports median 78k

Other steering problem

112 reports median 82k

Other suspension problem

86 reports median 85k

Airbag inflator rupture

59 reports median 105k

Other powertrain problem

40 reports median 12k

How far this goes

This page is kept out of search results because 5 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 5 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 2003 Dodge RAM 2500?

Across 5 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 10,000 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 2003 Dodge RAM 2500?

5 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 0.0 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