2018 RAM Promaster: what breaks, and at what mileage

What owners report breaking

Owners have reported 23 named failure modes on the 2018 RAM Promaster, and the three most-reported carry 33% of everything filed, which is an unusually even spread for one model year.

Cooling fan failure leads with 8 reports and about 0.2 per 1,000 vehicles.

Overheating follows with 5 reports.

Other powertrain problem follows with 5 reports, median 50,000 miles.

By system, the reports fall mostly into cooling (14), engine (8) and transmission (5).

How bad it is when it goes

Across the named modes, 5 mention a crash. Those are the words owners used in their own complaints, and NHTSA does not verify them, but they are the closest thing in this data to a measure of what a failure actually did.

The average severity weight across every report on this year is 3.24, where a stalled engine or a failed airbag weighs many times more than a rattling trim panel, and a figure this high means the reports are dominated by failures with safety consequences rather than annoyances. The weighting is set out in full on the methodology page.

What the top failures cost to put right, as editorial estimates for an independent US shop rather than figures from NHTSA: cooling fan failure at $350–$1,300, overheating at $400–$3,500, other powertrain problem at $400–$4,500 and other engine problem at $300–$4,000. Dealer labour, a seized bolt or a part that is no longer made can push any of these past the top of its range.

54% of the reports on this year sit in the engine, transmission, drivetrain or cooling systems — the four where a repair bill is usually four figures, so more than half of what owners complained about here is expensive.

How often, against how many were built

Scaled by an estimate of how many of these cars exist, the 2018 RAM Promaster draws about 1.5 per 1,000 vehicles, which puts it in the 75th percentile of complaint rates among 2018 vehicles we can rate.

That denominator is the weakest number on the page and it is fair to say so plainly. Rate per 1,000 uses a fleet-size estimate derived from recall paperwork for this exact model year. It is a lower bound.

The working figure is 37,034 vehicles. If the true number is twice that, every rate on this page is half what it says; the ranking against other 2018 vehicles, which is what the risk score uses, is far more robust than the rate itself.

Recalls on the 2018 model year

NHTSA has issued 10 recall campaigns covering the 2018 RAM Promaster, affecting an estimated 99,512 vehicles. A recall is a different kind of evidence from a complaint: it is the regulator and the manufacturer agreeing that something has to be fixed, and the fix is free for as long as the car exists.

The campaigns cover engine and engine cooling:cooling system:radiator assembly, power train:automatic transmission:lever and linkage:column and engine and engine cooling:cooling system:fan. Whether the work was actually done on the car in front of you is a question only the VIN can answer, and the manufacturer or NHTSA will answer it free.

Recalls also distort complaint counts. Publicity about a campaign reminds owners that complaining is possible, so reports for a recalled component often spike after the recall rather than before it.

How 2018 compares with the other years

High risk for a 2018 — 152nd riskiest of the 251 2018 vehicles we can rate. Every score on this site is a rank inside its own model year, which is what makes a 2004 and a 2019 comparable at all.

Across the 11 model years of this car that carry enough reports to score, 2023 comes out best at 63 and 2014 worst at 75, with 2018 itself at 74.

If the model year is negotiable, 2023, 2024, 2020, 2016, 2015 and 2022 score lower than 2018 by a margin worth acting on. Same body, same engines, different luck — usually a supplier change or a mid-cycle fix, which the complaint data can show but never explain.

Within the 2014–2020 generation specifically, 2020 is the strongest year at 67 and 2014 the weakest at 75.

The limits of complaint data

54 owner reports; fleet size estimated from this year's own recall paperwork. Every count on this page is therefore a floor: it is the number of owners who went to the trouble of filing with a federal agency, which is a small and self-selected fraction of the owners who had the fault.

Of those 54 reports, 20 carried an odometer reading, so the mileages here describe 37% of the sample rather than all of it. Owners also round: readings pile up on multiples of ten thousand, which is why this site publishes "about 90,000 miles" and not "91,438".

Named failure modes come from matching phrases in the complaint text, so a badly worded complaint can land in the wrong bucket. The effect washes out across hundreds of reports and does not wash out across five.

And nothing here predicts what one car will do. These are other people's complaints, filed years apart, on cars maintained by strangers. Read the page as a map of where this model year has previously gone wrong, then have the specific car in front of you inspected.