Software fault or failed update on the 2016 RAM 1500
1 crash 1 injury 2 of the 23 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.
When software fault or failed update gets reported
Owners of the 2016 RAM 1500 report software fault or failed update at a median of 40,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 20,000 miles and a quarter after 50,000 miles, from 21 reports that carried an odometer reading.
A part like this is normally expected to survive 30,000 miles. It is the 21st most-reported problem on this model year.
The mileage distribution
The reported range runs from 15,000 miles at the tenth percentile to 85,000 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 69,150 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.
33% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 17,100 miles | 20,000 miles | 41,000 miles | 50,026 miles | 86,250 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 a crash and 1 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.
Putting it right typically runs $0–$600 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 8 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2018, at a median of 25 miles, and latest on the 2025 at 135,000 miles.
By volume the 2015 carries the most reports, with 28; the 2016 has 23. 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.
At approximately 4700 miles the vehicle began to harshly shift from 2nd gear to 1st gear when slowing to a stop, in slow moving traffic or pulling in to a parking space. The vehicle will lunge forward when this occurs feeling as the vehicle was tapped from behind. The vehicle was returned for service at the original selling dealer who acknowledged the problem and proceeded to perform a "quick learn" procedure which re-calibrates the transmission shift patterns. Upon driving the vehicle after this service noticed it did not resolve the issue. Scheduled another appointment where the dealer replaced the transmission valve body and controller. After driving the vehicle for 3 weeks the issue returned. The ram factory representative coordinated for the truck to be dropped off at the dealership so he could see the problem. I provided detailed information of exactly when the problem occurred and specifically that the transmission needed to be above 170 degrees. This information was ignored and the rep didn't see the problem. After 6 months of dealing with the issue contacted ram corporate and was informed that the dealer never followed up…
With engine running in my driveway. I put it he truck in park got out of the vehicle and the vehicle started moving forward, running into my garage door I took it to the dealer. The dealer said they saw a problem and would not release the truck until chrysler investigate it. They had the truck for a month while they investigate it. I was told by chrysler they could not find anything wrong. However they did do a software update for the transmission. This was all within the first month that I had the vehicle (brand-new ).
Also reported on the 2016 RAM 1500
Other engine problem
Other steering problem
Other fuel system problem
Other powertrain problem
ABS module or sensor failure
Control module (ECM/PCM/BCM) failure
How far this goes
Complaints are voluntary, so 23 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 software fault or failed update happen on the 2016 RAM 1500?
Across 21 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 40,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 20,000 miles and a quarter after 50,000 miles. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.
How common is software fault or failed update on the 2016 RAM 1500?
23 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