2003 Dodge Ram 1500 consumer reviews

good over all, but with a 3" lowering kit from hibach suspension, cross cut & drilled rotors, ceramic pads, and 456 auburn gears, Gibson exhaust. all for less then $2000. it will turn this truck into a sports car. 0-102 mph it will push you back into the seat i never should have sold it

Great all around. Sounds great. Runs great. Very clean. Glad it came with tow package. I needed 4 wheel drive to get to work. Gas mileage is not the greatest but expected that.

Geat cannot sure what else to say about this truck. Ram tough as it states and Jammu engine last forever.

I got this truck almost new and have driven it to 299,000 miles. It has only has minor repairs and basic maintenance since I got it in 2004. I plan to retire it but keep it. So confident in it that I took it on a 850 mile round trip excursion to Nashville, TN earlier this year. Also, very safe. I was sideswiped on I-77 at 70 MPH and the truck handled great and never felt out of control.

I bought this truck brand new, and have driven it for the past 15 years. All I can say is that I have been constantly disappointed with this truck. First I must say that the design of the parking brake is very costly if anything goes wrong. Replacement procedure for simply replacing the rear parking brake shoes requires taking apart the rear differential and pulling out the axles. Expect around $750 from the Dealer, and about $300 from your local Midas or similar shop. Second issue I had was possibly related to the above issue, as I had to have the Parking brake shoes replaced not once but twice, with the shop doing disassembly of the differential both times. After about 140k miles, I had the rear differential drive pinion fall into the housing and creating a bunch of scrap metal. After it was carefully looked at, the pinion nut broke off of the drive pinion(it did not just come loose). I ended up getting a rebuilt rear axle assembly which lasted 75k more miles and outlasted the rest of the truck. The rust on this truck is absolutely terrible. It's assumed that if you have a truck in the Northeast that you will have rust problems. However, this truck after 10 years was full of holes and I had to do a very large amount of work just to get it to pass a Pennsylvania inspection(no rust holes allowed in that state). I did a "decent" job of patching, but it didn't look pretty. I did however seal it with a hard rubber to keep it from getting worse, but when something rusts this bad this fast, you just can't keep up. After about the same 10 years, it was identified during an oil change that the oil pan was completely rusted out and leaking badly through "rust holes". Checking the rest of the truck and finding it was still strong enough to be safe at that time, I repaired the Oil Pan. Once I got to the 15 year mark, the final nail in the coffin for this truck was found. The passenger side frame rail had a crack in it, and upon further inspection, most of the metal was rusted away. The metal on the frame rail was about the thickness of a body panel, and was pretty much soft Swiss Cheese. In addition, there was about 1 to 1 1/2 in of loose rust in the frame rail(boxed frame) that had collected there. This was all from the rusting on the inside of the frame rail. Had I not found this it could have easily broken while driving down the road, and I drive this mostly on the highway so I would have been traveling 70mph if it happened. Not something that I would expect in a truck that was only 15 years old. I have had trucks in the 20-25 year old range with nowhere near this amount of rust on them, all while living in the Western NY/Northwestern PA area. Very disappointed in the frame design. I have not included some of the other things that I have repaired here, but I do consider a majority of the remaining items to be normal maintenance when dealing with a truck that is not new. I just thought that I would touch on the things that I would say are abnormal and below the level of quality that I would expect from a manufacturer when it comes to a full size truck that will actually have to do work for a living and not just be a pretty show piece in my driveway. I'm not sure if the other makers of Full Size trucks have similar problems, and I'm sure in efforts to lighten the trucks and improve fuel economy they might, but I thought I would share my experience in case anyone reading it is looking at one of these in an area where snow, and more specifically salt, is part of your normal winter driving.

This particular Ram 1500 doesn't have all the options in the world but is a very reliable vehicle. I used it primarily to drive in the snow and tow my camper and it never once let me down. I will buy another dodge in the future for sure!

Nice truck but the 3.7 engine lacks power. And the 36 gallon fuel tank hurts to fill up and at a avg. mpg of 13 you fill it up often. Interior is very bare bones could have used a little more thought.

Very decent vehicle for price, if I hadn't found a very good deal from a family member on something else I would have bought this puppy

The 2003 ram 1500 had plenty of power where I'd need it, great leg room. Nice exterior style. Interior was definitely lacking some updates but it was comfy and plenty of room. Compared to a Ford F150 4x4 same package for most part dodge degin of that year was much better all the way alongtd

Accelerates with a great amount of power. Great looking truck. Interior is really comfortable. Did not do any towing with that truck. Easy to maintain.