"Don't ever buy a Dodge, Jeep, or Ram!!!!" warns TikToker Jared Frazee (@jared_frazee), who uploaded a viral TikTok telling everyone on the internet why he believes cars manufactured and distributed by Dodge/Rams/Jeeps are terrible purchases, delineating his own experience owning a Ram himself.
Frazee's TikTok account features several different Ram trucks, and on his TikTok profile page he indicates that he used to have a 2018 Wrangler, which he sold, as well as a 2019 Ram 2500 and 2022 Ram 3500 which he also sold. His current vehicle is a 23 Ram 1500, which also happens to be the one he's having problems with.
In his clip, Frazee said that purchased the car when it had just 72 miles on it, and that he first started noticing problems with the whip at just 1,100 miles into ownership. The issue? He wasn't able to fill the car entirely up with gasoline, stating that the gas gauge on the car doesn't read entirely full.
Initially, the TikToker states, he wasn't too worked up over this occurrence, stating that because the car was under manufacturer's warranty, it wasn't really all that big of a deal: "These things happen," he states in his clip, which he records outdoors, the car that he's speaking about in the foreground of his video.
So he decided to bring the car to a local Dodge dealership to get the issue resolved. He said that they purportedly swapped out the gas tank and filled the car up themselves. However, he noticed immediately when he got into the car and fired it up, it still said that the car had only 1/8th of a tank in it. Frazee never took the truck off the lot and instead handed the key back to the dealership's service team telling them that the problem persisted. They then told him they were going to replace the "fuel neck" to try and fix the issue.
So they went through the same rigmarole — they filled the car up with gasoline and handed him his keys and he said that the same issue persisted: It said it still "had an 1/8th of a tank before full" in it.
He told the dealership the problem didn't go away, which is when Frazee narrated what they did next: "After that they replaced the whole EVAP system. Same exact thing, pick it up, still an eighth of a tank before full. I guess we still can't read a gas gauge. A little annoyed at this point drop the key back off. Then the next thing they fix the fuel pump. Replace the fuel pump, again, no big deal, and again, still not fixed," he says as he walks around his car, recording himself narrating his unsatisfactory experience in purchasing a new Dodge Ram.
Frazee went on to say that the dealership blamed the leveling kit he added to his truck as the problem for the fuel gauge not accurately reading the amount of gasoline that was in his car, which the TikToker says made "no sense." However, he entertained their supposition and had the leveling kit removed on his car, returning the vehicle to stock to see if that would remedy the gasoline reading issue.
"They tried to fill it up, didn't fix it. They told me it was done and this is when it gets good," he says, walking toward his vehicle and cracking open the driver's door to once again show the existing gas gauge issue.
Frazee went on to say that he was told the gas line would read that the car was full by not only the mechanic that worked on it that drives the exact same truck but that he was also told by the service writer and the service manager.
He went on to his vent his frustrations with his new truck purchase stating that he was told the gauge is telling him it reads full, so he offered to go and pay to fill up any other Ram 1500 on the other to see if its gas indicator displays a full tank in the same way and if it does, he will leave. So how did they take his challenge?
"They refused. Called Mopar which I was also in contact with said the truck is done and the customer needs to get it out of here. And no matter what I said to Mopar directly they would not listen to me, they would only listen to the dealership. No matter, I sent them a picture of the gas gauge or anything. They wouldn't do a single thing about it and told me to pick my truck up and deal with the dealer. That's what you get when you spend $65,000 on a brand new Ram 1500. After spending $505,000 in the last five years on five Ram pickup trucks, three Dodge Chargers, a Jeep Wrangler, and a Jeep Grand Cherokee. Tell me how that makes sense?"
If you look deep enough into any auto manufacturer's recall history, you'll probably find some alarming time periods where key components of millions of vehicles were either improperly installed or contained some type of fault with them that needed to be addressed.
With Dodge-Jeep-Fiat-Chrysler, for instance, a few years ago there was a recall for car shifters that led folks to believe their cars were in park when they were actually in neutral. The Jeep vehicle that killed actor Anton Yelchin, was under this same recall—it's believed that he thought his car was in park, so when he hopped out of it in order to run to the gate to his home to open it, the car rolled back and crushed him.
These parking issues, which have caused rollaways in vehicles, seemed to continue for Dodge—in September Mopar Insiders reported that the FCA US Technical Safety and Regulatory Compliance organization made note of this problem.
Several commenters who responded to Frazee's video offered up helpful suggestions as to how he could go about potentially rectifying his issue. One recurring recommendation: Look into the gauge cluster instead of swapping out fuel tanks, pumps, and lines. And then there were those who thought that the best course of action would be to invoke local lemon laws to see if their vehicle would fall under that distinction: "lemon law. all manufacturers have lemons. I used lemon law on a nissan titan. they will have to pay you back everything you paid."
Someone else said that the biggest mistake he made was purchasing a Ram in the first place and that he should've went with a Toyota instead: "Buy Tundra next time," they wrote, which was a piece of advice penned by another user on the application who said: "My 2019 Tacoma had 294 k miles, never had a problem with it , Toyota the best"
@jared_frazee We are going on week 7 and it’s still not fixed!! Tell me what I’m supposed to do if your dealer won’t help me @ramtrucks #ramproblems #ram #dodge #jeep #foryou #fyp ♬ original sound - Jared Frazee
There was another person who said they worked at a Mopar dealership and remarked that, unfortunately, Frazee's experience wasn't unique: "I work at a Mopar dealership it’s like this on Rams and Grand Cherokees all the time. I’d never by a Mopar"
The Daily Dot has reached out to Dodge-Jeep-Fiat-Chrysler via email and Frazee via TikTok comment for further information.
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