Unclassified problem on the 2013 RAM 1500
13 crashes 6 injuries 19 of the 92 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 45 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 unclassified problem gets reported
Owners of the 2013 RAM 1500 report unclassified problem at a median of 52,500 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 30,000 miles and a quarter after 75,000 miles, from 45 reports that carried an odometer reading.
It is the 84th most-reported problem on this model year.
The mileage distribution
The reported range runs from 10,000 miles at the tenth percentile to 105,000 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 96,000 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.
36% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10,000 miles | 29,000 miles | 53,000 miles | 75,000 miles | 106,000 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, 13 a crash and 6 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.
The same failure on other years
The same failure is reported on 12 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2020, at a median of 5,000 miles, and latest on the 2025 at 105,000 miles.
By volume the 2019 carries the most reports, with 210; the 2013 has 92. 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.
Accelerating from stop light and at 35 MPH a loud explosion was heard from the passenger dash area. I thought I saw some powdery dust afterward. Took the truck to the dealership and explained what happened. They did a drb computer test and road test. Nothing found. Also there were no dash warning lights. When it happened my first thought was the air bag charge went off, but why didn't the bag come out.
Driving approximately 70 MPH at 7:30am on a saturday on a 4 lane interstate. Light rain, truck started hydroplaning sideways, no traction at all, then sudden traction thrusting truck into guardrail head on, bounced backwards into the middle lane, then traction again moving truck forward into a ditch, up the embankment and hitting a tree head on. Total loss of traction and brakes. Airbags did not deploy. Over $10,000 in damage.
Recently I was involved in a car accident with my 2013 dodge ram 1500. I was struct by a car at approximately 35 MPH and hit directly on the drivers side,(t-boned) the truck is equipped with side air bags and front air bags,which never deployed. The accident brought extensive damages to the truck and injuries to my wife and I. I reported the non deployment to dodge in which case a special inspector was sent out to thomas dodge where he ran diagnostics of the airbags computer. No fault signals were found. Dodge response to the investigation was ! Impact was not sufficient to merit air bag deployment!. Department of transportation safety says the bag is inflated at a certain crash threshold, usually corresponding to a speed of the impacting vehicle of more than 15-20 km/h. Dodge refused to act on it so the question should be to myself, dodge ram owners and perspective buyers,,,will my airbags deploy when I need them to??? Be ware.
Also reported on the 2013 RAM 1500
Other steering problem
Other electrical problem
Loss of power steering
Steering rack, gear or tie rod failure
Other engine problem
Other powertrain problem
How far this goes
This page is kept out of search results because 92 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 92 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 unclassified problem happen on the 2013 RAM 1500?
Across 45 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 52,500 miles. A quarter were filed before 30,000 miles and a quarter after 75,000 miles. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.
How common is unclassified problem on the 2013 RAM 1500?
92 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 1.0 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