Unclassified problem on the 2016 RAM 1500
16 crashes 5 fires 14 injuries 1 death 36 of the 94 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 44 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 2016 RAM 1500 report unclassified problem at a median of 27,500 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 7,500 miles and a quarter after 47,500 miles, from 44 reports that carried an odometer reading.
It is the 81st most-reported problem on this model year.
The mileage distribution
The reported range runs from 2,500 miles at the tenth percentile to 77,500 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 76,350 miles across the middle 80% of reports.
When the reports scatter this far, the mileage is telling you about how these cars were driven more than about the part itself.
64% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2,000 miles | 6,475 miles | 28,207 miles | 48,500 miles | 78,350 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, 16 a crash, 5 a fire, 14 an injury and 1 a fatality 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 2016 has 94. 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.
Thursday morning april 14 I got into my truck to go to work. Put my foot on the brake and start the engine. Turned the transmission rotary knob on the dash to r and back out of the garage. The engine was still running and put my foot on the brake to go to p for park. As I was getting out of the truck and taking my foot of the brake pedal. The truck starting moving forward going back into the garage. It pinned me between the inside of the front and the garage door opening. I was able to reach for the knob again to put it back into reverse. It smashed the left front door in and tore the side of garage door opening. I had major bruising on my body. I am very concerned about driving this vehicle due to this issue. I want to be reassured that the vehicle is safe before I drive it again. I have big concerns regarding the rotary design for the transmission knob.
Had just backed vehicle out from underneath carport at my home, left in driveway, turned off ignition (it was stationary), and went inside my home. A few minutes later, the vehicle started exploding and caught fire. The vehicle burnt up completely, it is a total loss!!!
I put my truck in park. It was dark out. I stepped out of my vehicle onto the highway to take a picture of the moon. As my feet hit the pavement the truck begin to roll in reverse. I was hit by the driver side door and thrown to the ground. I rolled away from the vehicle before being run over by the tire. The truck continued to go in reverse and I chased after the vehicle pure adrenaline was all that kept me going. I then attempted to jump into the moving vehicle. I was dragged a short distance before pulling myself into the truck cab. I applied the brake bringing the truck to a stop. I looked at the dial shifter and it still said it was in park. I suffered bruising and a decent sized contusion to my right leg and some bruised ribs. I am very fortunate to be agile enough to have escaped worse injuries.
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
This page is kept out of search results because 94 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 94 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 2016 RAM 1500?
Across 44 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 27,500 miles. A quarter were filed before 7,500 miles and a quarter after 47,500 miles. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.
How common is unclassified problem on the 2016 RAM 1500?
94 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 0.7 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