This truck has been babied. It has not been off road or used to tow excessive loads. The U-joints should not be failing at 52,000 miles.

The OEM American Axle Manufacturing universal joint (MOPAR part number 68065428AC) started making a faint ticking noise on the way to the grocery store 3.8 miles from my house. On the way home I had to make a left turn across busy traffic coming from the opposite direction. The U-joint failed and caused the steering to bind up. I had to struggle to complete my turn to avoid a head-on collision. I managed to make it a few more blocks to pull into my driveway. The sudden and unexpected failure of the steering could have led to a serious accident. My truck had recently been serviced by the Dodge dealership for an unrelated engine light issue (see next complaint) and they took my truck for a long test drive without any problems noted in the steering or drivetrain.

Dodge wants $212 for this U-joint and over $450 for the repair, so I opted to fix it myself. I ordered a replacement U-joint from Amazon ($58 for a Spicer 5-3212X). O'Reilly Auto gave me a free sample packet of anti-seize compound when I bought some blue Loctite. I rented a 300 ft/lbs torque wrench, hub puller, and U-joint press for a few hours. I borrowed a floor jack, jack stands, 3/4" drive electrical impact wrench, 3/4" to 1/2" adapter, 1 11/16" (43mm) impact socket (for the axle nut). I used my own metric socket set for the two brake caliper and four hub bolts. It took me a day to round up the tool and supplies and watch Chris Fixx, Eric the Car Guy, and Scotty Kilmer videos on YouTube to get a grip on how to approach this problem. The next day I spent about four hours replacing the U-joint, cleaning up and returning tools. This truck has been one headache after another (EGR valve x 3, dash vent, engine lights, throttle response issues etc.) but I am getting to be a pretty good car mechanic thanks to the YouTube experts.