'05 Ram 2500 transmission

[joshuabardwell]

A few days ago, my girlfriend told me our truck was acting weird. Revving at stops and pulling too much at low speeds. We took it in and it was diagnosed as the transmission. Apparently, there is an issue with these trucks where the torque converter clutch fails and the torque converter locks up.

The first place we took it to quoted $5600 for a new transmission. Said they don't do rebuilds. The second place we called took six hours to call back with an estimate. The third place we called diagnosed the torque converter sight unseen and said they had a standard heavy duty upgrade / rebuild that they do for $3100. Guess who got my business. The truck barely made it the ten minutes from the first place to the third.

Amazing how $3000 sounds cheap when compared to $5000. Ugh. I just bought this truck a year ago too.

 

[WilliamBos]

Diesel? Aisen trans?

 

[YesDeere]

The torque converter has always been the weak link. It seems they go out right at 100,000 miles, some sooner.

Definitely spend the extra $$ on the TC. Can't remember the brand it was but it was made of billet. One I know of has 200,000 since the build and it is heavily modified.

 

[DT86]

I bet driving was fun with the converter locked up. Earlier this year the rack got stuck in my injection pump at ~2000 RPM. It was very interesting driving it home since it wanted to do 70 MPH all the way. People looked at me like "WTF is this idiot doing?", not that they don't anyway.

 

[DT86]

Definitely spend the extra $$ on the TC. Can't remember the brand it was but it was made of billet. One I know of has 200,000 since the build and it is heavily modified.

It seems like everyone used to go with the ATS and Banks or if they had deep pockets, Sun Coast.

 

[joshuabardwell]

The torque converter has always been the weak link. It seems they go out right at 100,000 miles, some sooner.
Definitely spend the extra $$ on the TC. Can't remember the brand it was but it was made of billet. One I know of has 200,000 since the build and it is heavily modified.

This truck has about 170k on it, so I guess the tranny did all right--unless this is the second one! The transmission shop used a lot of terms like "heavy-duty" when discussing the aftermarket parts they were going to put in, but it was in one ear and out the other. I don't know enough about transmissions to have an opinion, and they sounded like they knew what they were doing.

Diesel? Aisen trans?

Diesel, yes. I don't know which transmission exactly.

I bet driving was fun with the converter locked up. Earlier this year the rack got stuck in my injection pump at ~2000 RPM. It was very interesting driving it home since it wanted to do 70 MPH all the way. People looked at me like "WTF is this idiot doing?", not that they don't anyway.

I never did get to drive it, since it's "her" truck. I did follow her all the way to the mechanic, and I could see that things weren't right. Every time she went below 15 mph, and especially at stops, the exhaust started pouring black smoke as if she was flooring the accelerator. I told her, if anything goes wrong and the truck tries to run away from you, don't bother pushing the brakes, because that diesel has so much torque, there's no way they'll stop it. Put it in neutral and/or kill the ignition.

 

[YesDeere]

Sounds like they are familiar with the weakness and know what to do. It's worth putting the money in I think. They are a tough *** truck.

 

[wmonroe]

An 05 will have the 48RE in it. 170,000 miles isn't bad for an auto in a HD truck.

 

[jinman]

I know my '96 truck is a whole different generation, but I had the 47RE transmission rebuilt at 160k miles. It was slipping and shifting hard plus not wanting to go into overdrive. I had the complete transmission rebuilt and a new torque converter for $1800, just to give you a comparison. The truck ran like a new one. Everyone said I was making a mistake and should pop for a new transmission. They said a rebuilt transmission wouldn't last more than 50k miles. Well, they were wrong. The transmission continued to work perfectly for another 160k miles. It started exhibiting the same symptoms as before. I went to the place that rebuilt it the first time and they had sold out to somebody who I did not like. They did a filter change for me and I wasn't happy with the job they did. I did a lot of reading on the internet and even replaced my throttle position sensor (TPS). I found somebody who said that you should always try a reboot of the PCM by disconnecting the battery for at least 45 minutes. To be sure, I disconnected the batteries and let the truck set overnight. I was pretty skeptical as I reconnected the terminals the next morning and completely shocked to find the truck ran perfectly. Except for a leak in the pan from a cross-threaded bolt when I had the filter changed, the truck has continued to shift perfectly and now I have 375k miles on it. I had the leak fixed a couple of years ago. My first $1800 rebuild has lasted over 200 miles. Now I wonder, did I REALLY need that original rebuild or should I have just disconnected and rebooted the PCM?:confused3:

 

[joshuabardwell]

I wish I could have found somebody to do it for $1800! On that note, there is a bit more to the story. The original mechanic said $5600 to put a new transmission in it, and said he didn't do rebuilds. When we picked up the truck to take it to the other place, he asked what we were planning on doing, and when he heard we were going to rebuild it, he pooh-pooh'ed the idea. He said that there was no way you could do the job right for $3100, and the thing was sure to fail again down the line. We took the truck and drove it straight to the other place. Literally on the way home, about 25 minutes later, we get a call back from the first place, saying he just heard back from one of his other shops (it's a chain), and they have a guy there who can do the rebuild for $2600. Oh, really?! What happened to, "We don't do rebuilds," and, "It'll just fail later." We told him the truck was already at the other place. About an hour later, we got a call from the "other mechanic" who was offering to do the rebuild, following up personally. He was polite about it, but he wanted to know why we weren't taking the offer. It turns out, the first shop has been losing business, and this guy must have been the district manager, or maybe a partner or something, and he was trying to figure out what happened to run us off. My girlfriend told him the whole story...