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P204F code

NWRogue

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Well, my truck is out of service. 4800 miles and useless to me right now. On a road trip, woke up in Rapid City, SD, drove 3 miles to the Panera Bread for breakfast. Waiting in line for the drive through and get a Service DEF message, don't recall the exact text as that was yesterday morning after a 12 hour drive, the last 4 hours in a snow storm. My OBD scanner showed 1 P204F code, no others, no repeats while I was waiting for my breakfast or after finishing it; so figured I'd try for my next stop. Got about 30 minutes down the road and I get the "in 200 miles your truck will not restart" (or whatever it is) with 500 miles to drive and gauge showing 222 miles to empty. Before the flame starts, in hindsight, yes I should have just gotten it to the dealer, but don't think that would have changed the rest...

Searched for the closest dealer, and back to Rapid City. Local Ram dealer was 1 week out to get my truck in, but called their Chrysler location across the street and got me in. This morning, after test driving the truck, cannot get the "no restart" message to reset, called Ram and they want them to replace the DEF tank and pump. Overnighting that, and hopefully will have my truck back Friday afternoon.

Based on what I am getting from the service writer, the P204F occurred once, there are no shorts in the wires, after driving for 40 miles, they manually recycled something, disconnected the battery multiple times trying to get the "no restart" message to clear. Also applied an update to the ECM, not sure what yet will post that once I have the paperwork. The check engine light is off, based on what they are seeing there is nothing wrong with my truck, well, except for the fact the it thinks the DEF tank is empty even though they filled it. Was at 3/4 full when I dropped it off. No clue about what might have been the cause, Google search says that sometimes the P204F is due to cold temps and well it was cold.

BTW, if you are ever stuck in or near Rapid City, SD with issues, Liberty Chrysler Jeep Fiat service department is great. Cannot say enough about how grateful that I am that they were able to fit me into their schedule (their first opening was actually Friday). Currently the Ram dealership is down 3 techs due to COVID which is why they were a week out to even look at my truck, thankful they thought to call across the street to see if that would work.

I will post an update once I get my truck back and have the service paperwork in front of me.

Edit: FYI... From the door sticker, my build date is 10-19. Assuming October 2019.
 
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bill-e

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Exactly why we need someone to figure out the jumper bypass for the Gen 3 like we had for the Gen 2.
 

NWRogue

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New DEF tank and pump did not resolve the issue. next step is to replace one of the computers, which is not in stock anywhere in the US. so my truck is stuck in South Dakota, and I'm going to cut my vacation (not much of one because we never got where we were going) short and go home to Washington to await word on what FCA is going to do to get it back to me, or if I have to fly back and drive it home once it's fixed.

Going to be awhile before I am confident driving this truck on long trips, long being 1/2 tank from home so I can be sure I can get home and not get stuck away from home with a broken truck if the countdown to "no restart" message appears again.
 

NWRogue

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More not good news today. It now appears that the part (the ECM) is now not scheduled to be at the dealership until 9 October. This just sucks. Probably more for FCA than me, but not really happy about the option that opens for me. In Washington, there is an "out of service" time limit available in the lemon law. At 30 days out of service, I can send written notification to FCA that I am requesting a buyback under Washington's lemon law. 9 October is 31 days out of service. Let's see if customer service can get the part delivered sooner, they've started that request already.

Not sure if I want to go there our not. Luckily, I have another car that I can use so I'm no longer in a rental, but said car is a lease that I have to return by the end of October. At this point, if (and that's a big if) I request a buyback and decide to get another Ram truck, I'm pretty sure I'm going to have to order a 2021 with a hemi instead of the ED. Not sure I want to compromise on an in dealer stock truck. Not sure what that does to me for when I can get the new truck, guess we'll cross that bridge when we get there.
 

NWRogue

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My truck is fixed. It's still in South Dakota, but it is fixed. New ECM resolved the problem. According to the service rep, there are at least 3 other trucks that have had the same issue.

Part just showed up at the dealership this morning, they had no indication that it would be there before 9 Oct, and I've gotten crickets from FCA since my only e-mail from the customer service rep which was just a "hi, no updates" e-mail.

I asked him to break my truck, and see if fixing it again would clear the messages. So, they drained the DEF tank and drove the truck until the Service DEF message came up and the "no restart" countdown started. Refilled the DEF tank and drove it again and both messages cleared as they should.

So, feeling a bit better about not having issues again in the future. No clue what was wrong with the original ECM that the "no restart" wouldn't clear once it started getting a signal on the DEF level.

Now waiting on FCA to tell me how they are getting my truck back to me.
 

md-lucky

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Sorry to hear about all your troubles and frustrations.

I have noticed that as soon as my DEF gets to about 1/2 tank, it will give inaccurate readings for the first 5 minutes of driving the truck. It will show 1/4, then back up to 1/2, then 1/4, then 1/2 and will finally level out at 1/2.

I've never let it actually go much lower because I'm worried if I get it down to 1/4 and it does something like that it might trick the truck into thinking its "empty."

Good luck on getting the truck back.
 

NWRogue

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It was about 5/8ths full before I left home, so I topped it off (2 gallons of Peak DEF) so I didn't need to worry about it during the trip. A bit over 1300 miles before the issues started.

Crickets from FCA customer support on how I'm getting my truck back, so flying to Rapid City, SD on Friday to get it myself. I have to turn in my Mercedes lease next week, so it's get my truck myself or back into a rental.
 

Burnzie

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They FCA should put it on a transport truck and deliver it to you, save YOU the time, hassle,plane tickets and 1200 miles on your truck.
 

NWRogue

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it was going to get the 1200 miles anyway, 3rd day of a 2 week vacation. but yes, agreed they should be delivering it. they'll be getting another bill for the airfare.
 

Burnzie

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it was going to get the 1200 miles anyway, 3rd day of a 2 week vacation. but yes, agreed they should be delivering it. they'll be getting another bill for the airfare.
You can bill them till your blue in the face, I'm betting you won't get squat. What they will tell you is "We fixed it, that's all we have to do our end of it is dun."
 

NWRogue

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Mostly agree with you, they've so far ignored my request to be re-imbursed for the 4 days I spent in a hotel waiting on a part to be "over-nighted". And the cost of the rental for those 4 days and to get my family and I home.

25 years ago I promised the president of Toyota USA that I'd never buy another Toyota product and would encourage others to do the same. So, far I've kept my word.

If FCA doesn't make me whole, they'll have lost a customer for life.

And, yeah, i'm just one customer, but principles matter.
 

NWRogue

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Agreed, before we bought that POS, I understood that they never broke either. List of the worst problems:

Rattle in back, it was a Camry wagon, after replacing the entire rear hatch trim 3 times to no avail, they used 2 sheet metal screws through the trim and the hatch to secure it. Didn't notice it until the first time I opened the hatch at the grocery store a week later. Not quite the fix I was looking for, and if I was I could have done that myself.

I watched a tech rebuild my transmission twice to replace a shift solenoid that was causing it to hang between 2nd and 3rd gear at certain throttle positions (it was fine if you had your right foot on the floor). It got better, but never completely resolved, got tired of them telling me they couldn't reproduce the problem, so never took it back for that again.

The week before I sold it, I took it to the dealer because it was pulling to the left. By pulling, I mean if you let go of the steering wheel it would change lanes before you could get pull it back. They called me 45 minutes later and said they could not replicate the problem. Then asked if I'd recently had the tires changed or rotated. I had new tires put on it about 2k miles before then, so he asked if they could rotate the tires to see if that changed anything. Called me back 5 minutes later and told me they found the problem, front driver side brake rotor was all different shades of blue from the heat that was being generated by a frozen caliper. Rebuilt the caliper, new pads, new rotor, new studs, new brake line, fluid replacement, and my Toyota extended warranty only paid for the caliper rebuild, they would not pay for the parts that the broken caliper damaged, because reasons. ARGH...

If you take out the scheduled maintenance, I still had a 5 inch stack of paperwork of repairs to that car, gave them to the used car lot that bought it from me. Took me 5 years to convince my wife to let me get rid of it, she never had to deal with the service appointments.

Never had an issue recur enough to get it to qualify for a lemon law, but tried to convince Toyota that they built 1 car that doesn't never break. Between the dealership and Toyota USA, no one was willing to even listen to my argument about that car.

Only thing it never did was strand me, so that's a bonus. :)

Oh, and still crickets from FCA customer support about getting my truck back or reimbursing my expenses.
 

Aseras

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You can bill them till your blue in the face, I'm betting you won't get squat. What they will tell you is "We fixed it, that's all we have to do our end of it is dun."
Then you send them a lawsuit and they can pay more, then file for lemon law, drag them to arbitration for funsies and then ignore the arbitration since its non binding and sue them over the lemon lawsuit in state court. when you win that then turn around and sue them again under the MMWA in federal court. Been there, done that with GM. I can be a **** and play hardball too.
 

Burnzie

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Then you send them a lawsuit and they can pay more, then file for lemon law, drag them to arbitration for funsies and then ignore the arbitration since its non binding and sue them over the lemon lawsuit in state court. when you win that then turn around and sue them again under the MMWA in federal court. Been there, done that with GM. I can be a **** and play hardball too.
Sounds good, but what did it cost you in lawyer fees and lost time @ work (days in court)?
 

Aseras

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Sounds good, but what did it cost you in lawyer fees and lost time @ work (days in court)?
A lot of frustration. GM ate all the costs. I was only out of pocket rentals and my payments until GM also was ordered to pay them all too. Overall, GM spent about 3 times what I paid for the car, to eat it and I got some very nice checks and no more Lemon and ended up getting a Cadillac at $13k for a $85k car and kept all the taxes credits on both. I traded it in on the 2020 ram for more than I paid.
 

NWRogue

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Got my truck home this morning. Glad to say that other than being dirty when I picked it up (outside was 3 1/2 weeks sitting outside, inside was us on a road trip) and the DEF tank at 3/8ths full (they filled it when I went back about it, didn't see it until I filled up before I left town) it was an uneventful drive. Haven't calculated the fuel economy yet, but probably in the 26-27mpg range based on what the generous dash shows. 75mph most of the way, although had to slow to 70 when I did the stretch through the Columbia River Gorge on I-84.

Now to get my latest set of receipts to FCA (I got an e-mail on Saturday). Not calling them customer support any longer as I don't feel much supported for being a customer.
 

baccigalup

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So I will be buying a new ram out of state soon. How does it work with the warranty and lemon laws? I bought my Toyota out of state and had it services locally even with the extended warranty, but how does fca handle issues the first 36k miles? For example I buy my car in va and I live in nj, I drive it home and find five things wrong with it, does my local dealer take care of it with ease?
 

NWRogue

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My experience says yes. The dealership in South Dakota had no qualms with fixing my truck even though I purchased it and live in Washington. They only contacted FCA because after they fixed the loose connector, the electronics did not respond as they should have.

Whether it will be easy or not is a reflection of the dealerships service department, some are going to be better than others.
 

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