I'm not into the whole brand-loyalty thing usually. I just call em' like I see em', and I'll be the first to admit that at one point in time I hated Dodge. And IMO I had good reason to.
The first new vehicle I ever bought was a 1999 Dodge Ram Sport. It was red, 2wd, automatic, with a 318. Had problems with it from day 1. Of course Transmissions (three of them), but it didn't stop there. The fog lights didn't work and were fixed numerous times..only to quit working again within a week, grossly underpowered, and problems with vacuum hoses popping off just to name a few. The paint was also shit and would chip if someone spit a corn kernel at it.
The only positive thing I can say about that truck is that (except for the leather wrap steering wheel that was falling apart and oozing black goo after 25k miles) the interior held up GREAT. The seats were very well made.
The truck became worthless to me for work, because I couldn't pull a trailer or haul anything without blowing up another transmission. So after the warranty was up, my wife drove it to and from work. Well, one day she was stopped at in a construction zone and some lady from NJ rear-ended her in a Toyota Land Cruiser and totaled the truck. My wife was ok, and it was a very happy day for us because we finally got rid of that piece of shit. I still owed 11k on it, and when it was all said and done the insurance company paid it all off except for 1200 bucks or so. I was more than happy to make up the difference.
After that, I swore I would never buy another Dodge. I've had probably close to a dozen Ford trucks for my business, and I've only ever had problems with one of them, so I just kept buying Fords. But over the years, I've seen a lot of improvements that Dodge has made and I think I might be ready to try out another Dodge for my business.
The Viper truck of course is different. We all know they have their flaws, but they're forgiven because it's such a rare specialty vehicle. Besides, I'd never think of towing or hauling anything with it. If I could've afforded a Viper truck (or if I even knew about them) before I started noticing the positive changes Dodge was making, I still would have bought one.
All manufacturers have periods where they make shitty vehicles. Ford's had some bad years, and so has Chevy. It's a costly, painful process when you get stuck with a piece of shit lemon, and I don't hold anything against someone who starts a website or bitches when it happens to them. To most of us, a vehicle is a major expense and it's always a bad investment. So, we at least expect to have a good product. There's nothing worse than making a bad investment on a bad product.
It's going to be at least another year until I buy another work truck, since I'm happy with my F-250 and I wanna keep it. My goal is to add to my fleet, and not trade-in. I'm seriously looking at a Sterling Bullet. For those of you who don't know what they are, it's basically a Dodge 1-ton beefed up in just about every way. I think they're an awesome truck, and I'm gonna make a separate post about them here just to see what everyone else has to say about them.
