Stellantis recalls nearly 34,000 Ram 1500 pickup trucks over damaged wheel hub
Stellantis is recalling 33,777 Ram 1500 pickup trucks to replace a damaged front wheel bearing hub encoder ring, an essential component in the vehicle's steering system. The damaged part is the result of poor handling prior to assembly of the vehicle, and not a pre-existing defect, according to a notice posted Wednesday by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
"Some 2025 MY Ram 1500 vehicles may have been built with damaged front wheel bearing encoder rings causing a loss of wheel speed signal (WSS) which may disable electronic stability control (ESC)" system, said Fiat Chrysler (now part of Stellantis) in documents posted by the NHTSA.
"Failure of the ESC system when intervention is expected and/or relied upon can cause a vehicle crash without prior warning," the car manufacturer said.
The recall covers certain 2025 MY Ram 1500 vehicles manufactured between Oct. 13, 2023 and Aug. 11, 2024.
As a fix, dealers will inspect and replace the front wheel bearing hub assembly of affected trucks, free of charge, according to Chrysler. Owner notification letters are expected to be mailed Dec. 19, 2024.
Vehicle owners may contact Fiat Chrysler Automobiles customer service at 1-800-853-1403. FCA's number for this recall is 97B.
Owners may also contact NHTSA's safety hotline at 1-888-327-4236 (toll-free at 1-800-424-9153) or go to www.nhtsa.gov for further information. NHTSA's number for the recall is 24V-794.
This is the second recall of Ram trucks since September, when Stellantis recalled more than 1.2 million Ram 1500 pickups over a software issue that also disabled the vehicles electronic stability control system.