It’s over four weeks since our last new Ram recall story, and that’s almost an eternity in Ram-recall time, but the Stellantis truck brand could be about to more than make amends. It might have to haul 1.1 million pickups back to dealerships to correct a fault with the power steering system.
To be clear, Ram hasn’t announced a recall yet, but the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has confirmed that it’s investigating 1500-series trucks built between 2013-16 over a loss of power steering assistance. The NHTSA says it has received 380 reports alleging either intermittent or total loss of steering assistance, and is aware of three crashes that could be attributed to a loss of power-assist.
In one case a Florida driver said his 2023 Ram 1500’s steering locked solid and could not be turned in either direction. He was quoted more than $2,000 for parts to fix the problem, Reuters reports. In another case a driver of a 2014 Ram 1500 suffered a loss of steering control while traveling at 55 mph (89 km/h) on a busy road, but with great effort managed to wrestle the truck through traffic and to the side of the road. But a third driver wasn’t so lucky and was unable to avoid crashing their 2013 1500 into a ditch when the steering assistance dropped out.
Related: Stellantis Issues Stop-Drive Warning For 2003 Dodge Ram Following Takata Airbag Fatality
The NHTSA says the alleged failures occurred at various speeds with “limited detectability” to the driver. If any Ram owners are getting a sense of deja vu here it’s because the brand recalled 440 vehicles in 2016 due to a problem with the power steering system. And the NHTSA is now investigating to see if that original recall should have cast the net wider.
“Consumer complaints indicate a similar failure may be occurring in vehicles that are out of scope of the recall,” the NHTSA said this week. “A Recall Query has been opened to determine if the scope of the recall mentioned above is correct or if another defect might exist that causes the alleged steering concerns.”