2025 Quality

[WXman]

Matt Maran got a 2025 to review and it was littered with electrical issues.

Then today Butter Da Insider posts a video with credible evidence that UAW and Stellantis are squabbling and trucks are being sabotaged with purposeful quality issues.

My goodness... Ram sales went from stellar to the dump and these 25s aren't going to help.

 

[Biga]

I haven't noticed any issues with mine yet knock on wood. My 2014 and 2019 had a few minor quality issues with weather stripping and paint. This one seems to be good so far.

 

[Pikeman_66]

Matt Moran got a 2025 to review and it was littered with electrical issues.

Then today Butter Da Insider posts a video with credible evidence that UAW and Stellantis are squabbling and trucks are being sabotaged with purposeful quality issues.

My goodness... Ram sales went from stellar to the dump and these 25s aren't going to help.

from Butta vidieo all the rams at belvedere may make some sense now. I suspect they could be the ones with short wiring harnesses. but who really knows at this point.

 

[firecadet613]

from Butta vidieo all the rams at belvedere may make some sense now. I suspect they could be the ones with short wiring harnesses. but who really knows at this point.

Yep, but I'd be worried if THAT many trucks failed QC checks.

 

[Jmac509]

Matt Moran got a 2025 to review and it was littered with electrical issues.

Then today Butter Da Insider posts a video with credible evidence that UAW and Stellantis are squabbling and trucks are being sabotaged with purposeful quality issues.

My goodness... Ram sales went from stellar to the dump and these 25s aren't going to help.

I wonder if he was reviewing a pre production model.

 

[mikeru82]

Honestly I was kind of on the fence as far as buying another Ram truck goes. After watching that I'm fully off that fence now. I wouldn't buy another Stellantis vehicle unless an American company buys them out. Even then I'd just be back on the fence though LOL.

 

[WXman]

I just listened to the Butter Da Insider video again, particularly the parts where the UAW representatives speak. It's very eye opening. And that, combined with what we're seeing in reviews online, pretty much assures that I'm not touching a '25. I'm going to wait and see how this shakes out. It might get ugly.

 

[Serpens]

I personally don't believe this "sabotage" business, but I do believe that this launch has had many issues. Stellantis will continue to utilize production plants in low cost countries but I have my doubts we're about to say goodbye to the 1500 pickup trucks in particular. NA-market only vehicles have been staying close by. Production hasn't gone any further than Canada and Mexico if they're produced outside of the U.S.

I wonder if he was reviewing a pre production model.

Most likely.

 

[mikeru82]

I personally don't believe this "sabotage" business, but I do believe that this launch has had many issues. Stellantis will continue to utilize production plants in low cost countries but I have my doubts we're about to say goodbye to the 1500 pickup trucks in particular. NA-market only vehicles have been staying close by. Production hasn't gone any further than Canada and Mexico if they're produced outside of the U.S.



Most likely.

I normally take things like this with a grain of salt, and I'd probably agree with you if it was just a blogger spouting conspiracy theories. But in this case there is corroborating evidence that there seems to be some truth to this. And not just on Ram trucks.

This isn't the first time that a car maker has come out with a new launch. You'd think they would be able to do that right. Believe me, I'd like to think that there's nothing to these claims. But everything is about the money. The UAW has a strangle-hold on American car companies. I can totally see something like this happening in order to move production out of this country to avoid paying those kinds of wages.

Even if they moved production to Mexico or Canada, it's still outside the US. Not sure what point you were making there.

 

[SD Rebel]

People who build our trucks are humans and if they have an ax to grind, I can see them doing this. Also, with Covid and all the production issues, I've had a feeling trucks these last few years maybe cutting some corners, at least based on some quality control issues brought up on this forum.

I wouldn't trust a 2025 truck at the moment, for a myriad of reasons, but what's going on with UAW and just the widespread introduction of the Hurricane, I would wait a bit for it to shake out.

 

[lonepeak]

In that case I need an alternative for a couple years. Need new. Looking but no good ideas yet.

 

[Darksteel165]

In that case I need an alternative for a couple years. Need new. Looking but no good ideas yet.

How can you "need" new?

 

[Serpens]

I normally take things like this with a grain of salt, and I'd probably agree with you if it was just a blogger spouting conspiracy theories. But in this case there is corroborating evidence that there seems to be some truth to this. And not just on Ram trucks.

This isn't the first time that a car maker has come out with a new launch. You'd think they would be able to do that right. Believe me, I'd like to think that there's nothing to these claims. But everything is about the money. The UAW has a strangle-hold on American car companies. I can totally see something like this happening in order to move production out of this country to avoid paying those kinds of wages.

My problem with this take is that it’s myopic. Last year, Stellantis began really tightening its grasp around of all its brands in preparation for economic instability amidst a whole slew of product debuts for all of its brands. To say this messy launch is evidence of UAW plants being targeted to me doesn’t make much sense when Stellantis has been struggling lately in general with its model launches. Just look at the Tonale/Hornet launch disaster, and that took place in Italy.

Even if they moved production to Mexico or Canada, it's still outside the US. Not sure what point you were making there.

My point is that Canada isn’t a lowest cost country, which is where Stellantis moving development and production whenever they can. Yet their plants are major production sites of future STLA Large platform products. Meanwhile, the Toluca and Saltillo plants haven’t been on Stellantis’ plans for capacity increases. If they were shoving a bunch of investment down there for future product I’d be a bit more worried at this point. Right now Toluca is just replacing lost volume by building the Jeep Wagoneer S and Recon.

 

[mikeru82]

My problem with this take is that it’s myopic. Last year, Stellantis began really tightening its grasp around of all its brands in preparation for economic instability amidst a whole slew of product debuts for all of its brands. To say this messy launch is evidence of UAW plants being targeted to me doesn’t make much sense when Stellantis has been struggling lately in general with its model launches. Just look at the Tonale/Hornet launch disaster, and that took place in Italy.


My point is that Canada isn’t a lowest cost country, which is where Stellantis moving development and production whenever they can. Yet their plants are major production sites of future STLA Large platform products. Meanwhile, the Toluca and Saltillo plants haven’t been on Stellantis’ plans for capacity increases. If they were shoving a bunch of investment down there for future product I’d be a bit more worried at this point. Right now Toluca is just replacing lost volume by building the Jeep Wagoneer S and Recon.

Like I said, I'd like to think there's nothing to these claims. Normally where there's smoke there's fire. I doubt they're making this completely up. But it's not doing Stellantis or any of their brands any favors. I guess time will tell.

 

[WXman]

Yeah when you have UAW representatives who are clearly not white collar executives (you can tell by their accent and tone) who are adamant throughout the video about wanting to do a good job, and expressing disgust at how the public views them, and how they are serious about building good products and then they give specific and explicit examples of how the junk coming off the assembly line is not their fault it gets my attention. It's not like these are people making ridiculous blanket statements. You can tell in their voices that they are sincere and they care, and again they are giving specific examples of how quality is being taken away from them (hence the sabotage).

Here's why it's concerning to me (and one of the guys actually said this in the video)... they went from having Truck of the Year for three years and moving up to the #2 spot in sales, surpassing Chevrolet for the first time in history, to the absolute bottom of the barrel in 24 months time. HOW DOES THAT HAPPEN? How do you go from having hands down the best truck in the nation and selling them like hotcakes to a complete disaster so quickly? You can't blame that on the workers. They know how to build this truck. It's been on the market 6 years....they know how to build the DT truck.

And along those lines...how long can they sustain horrible sales? That can't last. No business can sustain horrendous sales forever. There is a breaking point. All of the dealers around here have tons of Ram trucks that have sat so long there is mildew on them. I'm starting to get flashbacks of the "old" Chrysler from the 70s and 80s.

 

[lonepeak]

Doesn't RAM still rank #1? Certainly that could be proven otherwise in 2025 but haven't seen any new data. Did they drop in rank in 2023 and 2024?

 

[CHeYeNNe71]

Working for a manufacturer, I've seen them outsource a majority of parts that were done in house and much better quality. When you outsource, quality usually goes down.

 

[Serpens]

Unrelated, but I wonder these Hurricanes have revised thermostats. There's been two problems popping up on the Wagoneer forums - very early production models needed software updates to correct misfires (rectified almost immediately) and now the thermostat and the pipe leading up to it are needing replacements on SO and especially HO models. Hopefully they revised those parts before they made it to the 1500, as I've only seen this reported on MY23 Wagoneers so far. It's interesting, this isn't the only new motor I've heard of recently having trouble with thermostats.

Yeah when you have UAW representatives who are clearly not blue collar executives (you can tell by their accent and tone) who are adamant throughout the video about wanting to do a good job, and expressing disgust at how the public views them, and how they are serious about building good products and then they give specific and explicit examples of how the junk coming off the assembly line is not their fault it gets my attention. It's not like these are people making ridiculous blanket statements. You can tell in their voices that they are sincere and they care, and again they are giving specific examples of how quality is being taken away from them (hence the sabotage).

Here's why it's concerning to me (and one of the guys actually said this in the video)... they went from having Truck of the Year for three years and moving up to the #2 spot in sales, surpassing Chevrolet for the first time in history, to the absolute bottom of the barrel in 24 months time. HOW DOES THAT HAPPEN? How do you go from having hands down the best truck in the nation and selling them like hotcakes to a complete disaster so quickly? You can't blame that on the workers. They know how to build this truck. It's been on the market 6 years....they know how to build the DT truck.

And along those lines...how long can they sustain horrible sales? That can't last. No business can sustain horrendous sales forever. There is a breaking point. All of the dealers around here have tons of Ram trucks that have sat so long there is mildew on them. I'm starting to get flashbacks of the "old" Chrysler from the 70s and 80s.

Just because they made the vehicle for long time doesn't mean quality was ever top notch, as many automakers including Chrysler brand vehicles have proven time and time again. And we all know how sales started to go down, one only needs to look at the heavy price increases. I don't recall anyone blaming the workers for that.

 

[silver billet]

Yeah when you have UAW representatives who are clearly not blue collar executives (you can tell by their accent and tone) who are adamant throughout the video about wanting to do a good job, and expressing disgust at how the public views them, and how they are serious about building good products and then they give specific and explicit examples of how the junk coming off the assembly line is not their fault it gets my attention. It's not like these are people making ridiculous blanket statements. You can tell in their voices that they are sincere and they care, and again they are giving specific examples of how quality is being taken away from them (hence the sabotage).

Here's why it's concerning to me (and one of the guys actually said this in the video)... they went from having Truck of the Year for three years and moving up to the #2 spot in sales, surpassing Chevrolet for the first time in history, to the absolute bottom of the barrel in 24 months time. HOW DOES THAT HAPPEN? How do you go from having hands down the best truck in the nation and selling them like hotcakes to a complete disaster so quickly? You can't blame that on the workers. They know how to build this truck. It's been on the market 6 years....they know how to build the DT truck.

And along those lines...how long can they sustain horrible sales? That can't last. No business can sustain horrendous sales forever. There is a breaking point. All of the dealers around here have tons of Ram trucks that have sat so long there is mildew on them. I'm starting to get flashbacks of the "old" Chrysler from the 70s and 80s.

As far as sales go, Ram was never going to outsell Chevy permanently. This kind of thing takes years. Chevy had a pretty bad truck between 2019 and 2022 pre-refresh, it's no surprise that Ram was ahead for some time there. But as soon as GM reworked the interiors then they jumped back into their old position even beating Ford when using GMs combined sales (which they did even despite the crummy interior).

As for sales numbers now, its the oldest truck (pre hurricane, which is the sales numbers we're referring to here) on the market with some of the highest prices. What does one expect?

 

[SD Rebel]

Yeah when you have UAW representatives who are clearly not blue collar executives (you can tell by their accent and tone) who are adamant throughout the video about wanting to do a good job, and expressing disgust at how the public views them, and how they are serious about building good products and then they give specific and explicit examples of how the junk coming off the assembly line is not their fault it gets my attention. It's not like these are people making ridiculous blanket statements. You can tell in their voices that they are sincere and they care, and again they are giving specific examples of how quality is being taken away from them (hence the sabotage).

Here's why it's concerning to me (and one of the guys actually said this in the video)... they went from having Truck of the Year for three years and moving up to the #2 spot in sales, surpassing Chevrolet for the first time in history, to the absolute bottom of the barrel in 24 months time. HOW DOES THAT HAPPEN? How do you go from having hands down the best truck in the nation and selling them like hotcakes to a complete disaster so quickly? You can't blame that on the workers. They know how to build this truck. It's been on the market 6 years....they know how to build the DT truck.

And along those lines...how long can they sustain horrible sales? That can't last. No business can sustain horrendous sales forever. There is a breaking point. All of the dealers around here have tons of Ram trucks that have sat so long there is mildew on them. I'm starting to get flashbacks of the "old" Chrysler from the 70s and 80s.

The number 2 spot was really just for 2019 (RAM was throwing every incentive to claim it) and 2021 (GM had big production strains), it wasn't going to be a permanent thing. Going from 2nd to last is only 1 spot in reality, literally going 2nd place to 3rd.

However, their sales did take a dip, as you said they have been in the market for six years and they have the oldest truck on the lot. RAM is only getting to it's mid-cycle refresh in 2025 model year, whereas GM did it in 2022! Ford is already going on a mid-cycle from a recent redesign.

RAM kept the DT 1500 essentially unchanged for 6 years and only raised prices. Drop in sales was inevitable to fresher designs.


EDIT - Lol, Silver Billet pretty much covered it as I was posting.