Loss of braking on the 2002 Dodge RAM Van
2 crashes 2 of the 2 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 2 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 loss of braking gets reported
There are 2 reports of loss of braking on the 2002 Dodge RAM Van, 2 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 2nd most-reported problem on this model year.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| — | — | 36,600 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, 2 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 $400–$3,000 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, every year of the Dodge RAM Van
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.
On 11/07/05 I was driving north bound on western ave at approx 4:30 pm,traveling at 40 MPH approaching a red light in the right lane with 4 cars in front of me all ready stopped,upon my de pressing of the brake pedal there was no brakes, I tried again ,I down shifted ,at the last second I swerved violently to miss the cars in the first two right lanes,then countered corrected to miss the left turn lane cars ,finally striking a pick up truck ,that was stopped at the red light,that was occupied by a father, and his two children. A sheriffs officer also checked the brakes and stated it was a mechanical failure ,he also stated that with such an impact the air bags should have deployed. My vehicle is a 2002 dodge ram 1 ton maxi cargo van with only 36600. Miles . The very next day my passenger and I looked at the damage to the front end and took pictures and video taped the dash board, that did not indicate any signs of brake, nor air bag failure. The right front brake line appeared to have been rubbing against the upper frame causing the line to rub through. I have pictures of both right and left brake lines touching chassis and both…
On 11/07/05 I was driving north bound on western ave at approx 4:30 pm,traveling at 40 MPH approaching a red light in the right lane with 4 cars in front of me all ready stopped,upon my de pressing of the brake pedal there was no brakes, I tried again ,I down shifted ,at the last second I swerved violently to miss the cars in the first two right lanes,then countered corrected to miss the left turn lane cars ,finally striking a pick up truck ,that was stopped at the red light,that was occupied by a father, and his two children. A sheriffs officer also checked the brakes and stated it was a mechanical failure ,he also stated that with such an impact the air bags should have deployed. My vehicle is a 2002 dodge ram 1 ton maxi cargo van with only 36600. Miles . The very next day my passenger and I looked at the damage to the front end and took pictures and video taped the dash board, that did not indicate any signs of brake, nor air bag failure. The right front brake line appeared to have been rubbing against the upper frame causing the line to rub through. I have pictures of both right and left brake lines touching chassis and both…
Also reported on the 2002 Dodge RAM Van
Other body or interior problem
Control arm, ball joint or bushing failure
Other steering problem
Radiator or coolant leak
Fuel tank, filler or EVAP failure
Control module (ECM/PCM/BCM) failure
How far this goes
This page is kept out of search results because 2 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 2 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 loss of braking happen on the 2002 Dodge RAM Van?
Across 2 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 35,000 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 loss of braking on the 2002 Dodge RAM Van?
2 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