I Absolutely Love My 2025 Ram 1500 Bighorn, But After Three Dealership Visits, My Transmission Still Slips and Jerks In The Lower Gears

For most buyers, the first few thousand miles of a brand‑new truck are supposed to be the least dramatic and most confidence‑building part of ownership. It's the phase where you simply drive, enjoy, and forget about the drivetrain entirely. That expectation is exactly what made a recent post in the “Hurricane 3.0 TT Rams” Facebook group stand out. Ted Durand bought a 2025 Ram 1500 Bighorn Level 2 Midnight Edition with just 11 miles on the odometer, and now at 6,500 miles he says the truck has been flawless in every way — except for one very noticeable issue.

Here's him talking about it: “I got the 2025 Ram 1500 Bighorn Level 2 Midnight Edition. I drove it off the lot with 11 miles on it two months ago and just hit 6,500 miles. I absolutely love the truck. It’s got no issues at all, but the transmission feels a little slippery and jerky in the lower gears, especially when going downhill. It started doing this around 500 miles in.

I’ve brought it into the dealer three times now and they keep saying they test drove it and noticed nothing, which is complete BS. They told me the truck adjusts to the driver and could technically still be in its break-in period until around 10,000 miles, which I also think is complete BS. I’m under full warranty, so I’m not too concerned right now, but if it’s still doing this after 10,000 miles, I’m going to make it a serious issue. Other than that, I love the truck. It runs amazing and is super sharp.

Anyone else experiencing transmission issues?”

Why This Story Resonates With So Many New Ram Owners

What makes Ted’s post stand out is not that a transmission hiccup happened once, but it’s that it began before 1,000 miles, has continued through 6,500, and has already resulted in three separate dealership visits with no resolution. That pattern is exactly the kind of scenario that frustrates new‑truck buyers. Early drivability problems undermine confidence long before warranties expire.

And it is not the first time Ram owners have reported situations where the truck behaves one way in normal driving, but dealers dismiss it as untraceable during short test drives. In one ownership case, a driver said he couldn’t drive his Ram 1500 than three days without issues until the dealer finally made it right, showing how some problems only get addressed once they become persistent and provable.

What Other Owners Are Seeing

Lou Junior replied that the behavior is not unique to Ted’s truck. He wrote, “I have the same truck and at very low speeds (parking lot speeds), it does not know what low gear to grab if you let off the gas pedal. But my Honda does the same thing too. Too many gears.”

His comment highlights a broader trend that multi‑gear automatics can get confused in slow‑speed transitional moments, especially with adaptive logic. I've honestly noticed this gear confusion too in my 2012 Toyota Camry.

Then David Jamison added a nearly identical account: “I have the exact same truck… It’s now at 13k miles and it still does it. Although it got progressively worse up until around 10k miles, it seems to have lessened a bit… The best way to duplicate it for me is to take off at a typical parking lot pace up to 17‑18 mph and then back off the throttle. It will then upshift roughly, sometimes hard enough to make you think someone tapped the bumper!”

His experience counters the dealer’s “it will go away with break‑in” narrative.  For him, it peaked during break-in period, which is an interesting contrast.

Tim Long stepped in with broader context across brands: “I haven’t had a hurricane, but I’ve had a Durango with the 8‑speed, a couple Rams, and pretty much every brand with an automatic that has similar issues at speeds 25 mph or less. I wish I could still get a manual transmission in vehicles that work for me.” 

His point is useful, as some of these complaints are just simply baked into how modern autos behave.

Why Dealers Dismiss It So Easily

Short test drives rarely induce the exact coast‑down, light‑throttle, downhill, sub‑20 mph scenario where these jerks happen. And when a truck otherwise drives perfectly, service advisors default to phrases like “break‑in behavior,” “adaptive learning,” or “normal characteristic.” One Ram owner even said he stopped taking the factory‑displayed numbers and behaviors at face value after learning how surprisingly inaccurate some of the electronic estimations can be, which explains why many drivers do not trust vague dealership reassurances.

Not the First Time New‑Generation Rams Get Shrugged Off at Service

Patterns like this are familiar to buyers who have recently shifted to Ram from other brands. In fact, one former GM loyalist said he gave up 18 straight years of driving GM trucks before switching to a 2025 Ram 1500 RHO specifically because that truck felt better engineered on the road. Yet even he noted that early‑life bugs are often dismissed until they escalate. That framing matters because it shows that owner trust is not only about the truck, but also about whether concerns are believed early on.

Likewise, when issues are hand‑waved with “nothing found,” owners are forced to rack up more miles before anything becomes “real enough” to document, which leaves people driving expensive new trucks in a period of doubt.

Do Other Brands Handle This Better?

It is fair to ask whether Ford or GM half‑tons behave differently in the same scenarios. The truth is that modern 10‑speed and 8‑speed automatics across the segment, from the F‑150 to the Silverado, also show coast‑down and low‑speed shift flare when traffic forces quick lift‑off inputs.

In other forums, for example, plenty of 10R80 owners have reported rough 2‑3 or 3‑2 events in early mileage that they were told would "learn out" over time. Some of them did improve, but others only stopped once a revised calibration was flashed under warranty. That makes Ted’s experience less of a Ram‑only problem and more of a modern‑transmission reality: they are optimized for fuel economy, not perfection at 12 mph in a parking lot.

I think what stands out here is the mismatch between how refined these new Ram trucks feel in most situations versus how quickly dealerships are willing to minimize the rare situations where the truck doesn’t behave right. When someone notices a drivability flaw as early as 500 miles and it continues through three documented visits, that might not just be a “break‑in,” it's a repeatable behavior the manufacturer should want to understand. What erodes confidence is not the defect itself, but the sense that owners must wait until a problem becomes worse before anyone will take it seriously.

Key Takeaways for Readers

• Document everything while still under warranty. Early paper trails make later escalation easier.

• Insist on a ride‑along to reproduce symptoms rather than leaving the truck for a blind test drive.

• Push for software calibration checks. Modern shift maps evolve and updates exist even when advisors don’t mention them.

• Do not wait until it “gets worse.” Early patterns are the best predictors of a future mechanical claim.

Do You Think This Is a Problem? 

Have you ever had a brand‑new truck behave strangely in the first 10,000 miles and been told it was “normal” until it got worse? 

And if you own a 2025 Ram with the Hurricane powertrain, are you seeing the same low‑speed jerk or does yours shift cleanly all the way down?

I'd love to hear from you in the comments below.

Aram Krajekian is a young automotive journalist bringing a fresh perspective to his coverage of the evolving automotive landscape. Follow Aram on X and LinkedIn for daily news coverage about cars.

Image Sources: Ram’s gallery.