Other engine problem on the 2016 RAM 3500
2 fires 2 of the 17 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 other engine problem gets reported
Owners of the 2016 RAM 3500 report other engine problem at a median of 5,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 5,000 miles and a quarter after 55,000 miles, from 10 reports that carried an odometer reading.
A part like this is normally expected to survive 95,000 miles. It is the 4th most-reported problem on this model year.
The mileage distribution
The reported range runs from 2,000 miles at the tenth percentile to 120,000 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 117,322 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.
60% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1,997 miles | 3,282 miles | 7,007 miles | 55,500 miles | 119,319 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 fire 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 $300–$4,000 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.
The same failure on other years
The same failure is reported on 10 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2016, at a median of 5,000 miles, and latest on the 2022 at 115,000 miles.
By volume the 2017 carries the most reports, with 27; the 2016 has 17. 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.
Tl* the contact owns a 2016 ram 3500. The contact smelled an abnormal exhaust odor in the vehicle when the heater was running. The failure occurred without warning. The vehicle was taken to the dealer where it was not diagnosed nor repaired. The manufacturer was notified of the failure. The failure mileage was 4,128. Updated 05/03/16*lj
Daily occurrence. While dead stopped at light or idling along after lifting foot off of brake pedal, then slowly depressing accelerator pedal, there is a 2-4 second delay before truck starts to accelerate. Feels like a dead pedal. This has become worse as the truck accrues miles. When needing to accelerate quickly, the pedal response is slow to respond and has caused many anxious moments with vehicles bearing down on my rear end. I press the pedal and wait for engine to respond. The truck is a diesel and it does not feel like turbo lag. I had a 2007 diesel and this was not a problem at all. I feel that eventually this will cause or lead me to have an accident of some type. Every time I drive the truck I have to make allowances for the lack of pedal response, mostly in city, slow and go driving. On the highway at higher speeds this problem does not seem to be such an issue. I believe that ram needs to address this with some type of reprogramming for the engine, drive-train or both. This type of pedal non-response is very dangerous and quite disturbing. The dealers have no answer to this problem.
From day 1 the truck has had very poor throttle response. The big problem is on take off. The truck has a dead pedal with a delay of 3 to 5 seconds before the truck will accelerate. This can make for some dangerous situations. In looking for a solution to this problem I have found there is a huge number of owners complaining of the same thing. It seems chryslers response has been to ignore the complaints and not look into a solution
Also reported on the 2016 RAM 3500
Other steering problem
Other powertrain problem
Other wheel or tire problem
Other suspension problem
Other electrical problem
Other speed control problem
How far this goes
Complaints are voluntary, so 17 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 engine problem happen on the 2016 RAM 3500?
Across 10 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 5,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 5,000 miles and a quarter after 55,000 miles. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.
How common is other engine problem on the 2016 RAM 3500?
17 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 0.1 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