Ive had an 04 Dakota for 5 years. The engine and tranny are rock solid but the front suspension and brakes were SEVERELY underengineered for the truck. I lost interest in replacing it with another Dodge when a Chrysler exec was quoted in the media as saying they don't think bad balljoints and wheels falling off trucks rises to the level of a safety defect that merits a recall because so far it only happened at parking lot speeds. I believe they also said it's the customer's fault for not recognizing the symptoms and getting them diagnosed and repaired before it got to that point. One guy had it happen on his Dakota at low mileage but out of warranty, Daimler Chrysler offered to do all body and suspension repairs free of charge anyway if he promised not to go to the media. He declined, paid for the body and suspension repairs himself, then went straight to Dateline. My passenger's side joints were gone to the point of the truck being unsafe to drive at 60,000 miles. Turns out they had switched suppliers and were using a cheaper version of the part made of weak materials to save a few bucks, probably so they could pay heath benefits and wage continuation to the UAW employees.
These vehicles are very cool and fun if you're the type who trades every two years, stick with it for 5-10 years and 75-100000 miles and see how it works out. Meanwhile my girlfriend gets a recall notice for every single tiny little thing that might possibly ever go wrong on her RSX before she has to read about it in a newspaper or see it on the news.
The domestics have to be sued and embarassed publicly for years before they fix severe safety defects. They don't engineer cars, they engineer profit margins. They have to cut corners on the vehicles to keep their unions fat and happy. The import builders invest their money in the vehicles. They build more durable vehicles and even then are more ready to step up and make it right when they see a pattern that indicates something is still wrong, even small non-safety related items.
