98 1500 4WD Front End Bouncing

[mccullek]

I have a 98 1500 quad cab 4WD. Only 56,000 miles and never been off road other than across the pasture a few times. It drives great around town, but I was driving down the interstate yesterday, and I hit a bump. When I did, the front end started bouncing so hard I had to slow down and pull off the road to get it to stop. It did this once more before I could get it home. Could this be shocks or struts, are is this something more serious. I would like to get an idea of what's going on before taking it into the shop. If it's just shocks or something, I could take it elsewhere, but if it's something major, I would probably take it to the Dodge dealer. Any thoughts are suggestions would be appreciated.

[LTJGWorth]

Your not the only person to have this problem. It is a problem that Diamler-Chrysler refuses to fix. I have heard many things about this problem. I too had this problem. Here is what I went through: My mother wrecked my truck (not too bad, just a little physical damage). Soon after she did that, the truck would bounce violently whenever we would hit a bump or hit the brakes. Not every time but most of the time. It slowly got worst. So bad in fact that it would do it every time you turned the wheel to the left. I had the ball bearings change, new calipers and brake lines, and had the rotors turned. No good. Still had the shaking. My mechanic overlooked something that we found out later. A braket that holds the bottom portion of the wheel spindle to the frame had broken completely in half and was only being held on with one braket instead of 2. This was causing the left wheel assembly to bounce when weight was transfered to it (ie hitting the brakes or making a turn). I took the truck to a garage and had the insurance work done including that bracket and I haven't had the bouncing since. Another solution I have heard is to get a heavy duty after market steering stablizer for it. Other then that, I really don't know anything. I have heard from a lot of people that someone should file a law suit against Chrysler. Something needs to be done.

[BleedDodge]

Here is a site you should take a look at:

http://www.daimlerchryslervehicleproblems.com/

[mccullek]

I went ahead and took the truck to the shop. They act like I am crazy and state that they can't reproduce the problem. You can actually feel the bounce slightly, even at 45 - 50 miles per hours, but you have to get up to freeway speeds and hit a good bump for it to start really bouncing. When it does start bouncing, it bounces so violently that it will litterally bounce you off the road and you have to come to almost a complete stop to get it quit bouncing. If the dealership does not get this fixed properly, I will never buy another Dodge product again.

[Russ_M]

check the track bar ball joint and bushing

[rwood13]

mccullek .... did you read the post from LTJGworth? did you check the site BleedDodge said? Don't trust the dealer to figure it out, sometime you have to draw picture and point to it with your finger

[LTJGWorth]

I just had new tires put on my truck and they were balanced and rotated. I took a 300 mile trip back and forth 2 days after getting the new tires and have noticed that my truck isn't bouncing on bumps that I remember it bouncing on. There are actually certain places in the road that I drive everyday that I can say, "Better take it easy or this thing will bounce off the road." After getting these new tires, it hasn't bounced at all. I also put new shocks on the front about a week and a half ago. That helped a lot, but it still bounced. I had my ball joints replaced and that didn't fix anything, although they were bad.

[Robert M]

I too have the same problem with a 2004-- 2500 short box 4 door 4X4 almost Identical to LTJGWorth
I dorve it for 1 year before this started and then all of the sudden. I have changed ball joints-- stabalizer shock/twice--ride shocks -- tires-- and still the wild dash empting, white knuckle bounce that I'm sure this winter will diecide my fate, I am curious if this could be caused by a steering box?