That's some pretty good information to work from. Let me start with the handling complaint, and work from there. A vehicle drifting to the right could have an alignment issue, a tire issue, or could simply be following the crown of the road. Roads are not flat, they are high in the center to help water run off, or they could be sloped all the way across as in a banked turn. There are specs that have a technician check for just how quickly a vehicle leads to one side. If the lead is less than a given amount, then no repairs are indicated. This is somewhat subjective, but can in fact be proven by an experienced tech. As far as why didn't they start the truck and drive it in? I have that answer right away. I can just hear someone saying, "WE TOLD YOU XXXX WAS LEAKING, WHY DID YOU START THIS UP???" You see sometimes no matter what the tech does, he/she is going to be wrong somehow, to someone. But think about it, if the tech is wrong no matter what they do, then that is not fair and if you were the tech you'd be the first to protest. I don't know what was wrong with the truck, but the fact that it had to be towed, and pushed into the shop suggests the leak was serious, and maybe the truck didn't even run. Turning the wheel without power steering assist is a hard thing to have to do. Ford knows this, and has built the system to be able to do that if necessary. Having to push it into the shop, without the engine running will NOT hurt the steering on the truck. Read this next sentence and stop for a second and think about it before you go on. "I never noticed the truck pulling to the right, before the truck went into the shop last week." Does that sound like your friends current statement? Tell me where in that sentence does it say that the truck did not in fact actually lead to the right before it went into the shop? The answer is, it doesn't. It simply says he didn't notice that it did and in that you are likely to find the greatest explanation of what is going on. Once the truck went in for the last repair, what ever it was. Now your friend is looking at the truck closer and noticed something he does not like. From there it's not a big stretch hor him to assume that turing the steering without the engine running had something to do with this percieved difference. Which brings us to the last part of the post. The steering wheel lock only applies in one position. If you want to test to see if it still works, jack up the front of the truck so both front wheels are off the ground. Now with the keys in your pocket, turn the wheels side to side by hand and see if the column locks.

We have Geico. We'd been with our previous insurer for 13 yrs and never had an incident until a young woman ran into the side of my husbands car. Even though it was her fault, she filed a lawsuit against us. Our previous insurer was so inept about how they handled this, that we knew we didn't want to count on them in the event of any other problems in the future. One month after we switched insurers, we had to take our van in for service and borrowed a loaner. We did not buy their optional insurance because the van had complete coverage. We were at a red light and an elderly woman rear ended us. She also had Geico. Geico did just what we hoped they would. Paid for our medical bills and settled the costs with the rental co. The work on our van wasn't finished so we had to get a 2cd loaner. We got the additional coverage anyway just in case our own insurance might not cover us if any other accidents turned out to be our fault (instead of the elderly lady's). It seems odd that even though your truck didn't have collision coverage, the loaner should of. It seems to me that the dealer should be required to have full coverage on this loaner regardless of who is borrowing it. How old is the loaner? Bet its 'young' enough to qualify for collision coverage. I wouldn't let the dealer off the hook. I'd tell them that this loaner should have been insured regardless of who was driving it or what your own personal coverage was for the truck. I'd tell them that if they can't work something out, that you are going to talk to an attorney or the state attorney general and see what they have to say. Especially since they can't seem to figure out what is wrong with your truck.

Once again, thanks so much to all of you who have taken the time to write . . . I so appreciate it !!! Seeking, thanks for your sympathy and idea of searching the make with +problems . . . I did plug that in, and amazingly enough, came up with OTHER problems we've already had with this dang truck !!! On some other sights, I also did find some similar things . . . And, on another entirely different note . . . . I hope your little puppy continues to recover nicely . . .poor little thing .. I was so sorry to hear that . . just an awful thing to have to go through . . . my good thoughts to puppy and you !!! dktrahan, thanks for the Dodge websites . . . I got quite a lot of useful stuff from them . . . I was on the computer last evening . . . late . . so much so, that my poor eyes are tired tired tired today . . . but I am so determined to get to the root of all of this . . . Sue, not to worry . . . but the husband factor in all of this is really trying . . . too much to go into, but basically it's not helping this situation . . .at all !! He's blaming me and DS for even buying a Dodge product to begin with . . . So, wanted to make it clear that my son is being a total champ through all of this . . . Nina, I think that will be the next step . . . to take it back to the original dealer and tell them to just keep it until they get it figured out . . . and IF they can't figure it out, then somehow, I'm going to try to make them responsible for selling us this truck to begin with !! Someone has to take responsibility for this, and to "eat" the loss . . . Don't think it should be us . . . Supposedly the truck was certified, and I'm thinking that's worthless !!! I feel that we're kind of between a rock and a hard place . . . I'm too honest to not disclose problems with the truck if it comes to trading it in . . I certainly don't want anyone else to have to go through this . . . but we just can't afford to have 18K go down the drain, either . . . We don't want another Dodge product, but I'm wondering if we would have more leverage with the selling dealership if we did go with a new Dodge, then get rid of it at another time . . . Oh heck . .. I have such neck strain, headaches and eyes aches through all of this . . . . . Oh, and re: the computer reprogramming . . . I talked with our friend yesterday who originally diagnosed the problem as needing to reprogram the computer . . . He COULD NOT believe that Dodge wouldn't do that . . . could not believe that Dodge said they wouldn't take responsibliy for anything that might go wrong because of the re-programming . . . I asked if he would mind if I had the Dodge guy call him and they could hash it over . . (they are acquaintances, having worked together years ago) He he didn't mind at all . . . called the Dodge guy, he told me WHY he didn't want to re-program it, saying he had to answer to Dodge as to why it was re-programmed when they couldn't get the problem to duplicate . . . said that even if they did re-program it, that that might not be the problem, which I can understand. I told him plain and simple though, that the truck, to us, is not safe to drive. Oh, and another thing . . .in an e-mail from our service adviser yesterday, he said that assuming there is a problem, that it WILL get worse, to the point of engine failure, and THEN we can bring it back and they'll know what to do !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Okay, so digressing a bit . . . back to the main service guy . . . he suggested that they could just keep it and he'd have his techs drive it home at night to try to duplicate the situation . . also saying that his techs were more experienced drivers than my son, and if anything should go wrong on the freeway, that they'd know more how to handle it . . . Now, all of this just does not leave me with warm fuzzy feelings !!!!!!!!!!!! Bill, thanks for the clogged catalytic converter tip. I e-mailed that suggestion, along with a list of other things that I gleaned from some of the Dodge forums. The catalytic problem sounds so much like what's going on with the truck . . . I'm so wondering just exactly what they've done to check into all of this . . . whether it's just driving the truck to try to duplicate the situation, or really getting into it. My friend that has his own shop told me that dealers really don't like working on warranty work . . . at all !! and sometimes do just what they have to to get it out the door. He did highly recommend this dealership, but for the life of me, and maybe I'm just naive . .. but I can't figure out why THEY can't figure out what's going on !!!!! Well, that's the update for today . . . so far anyway . . . Again, I so appreciate all of your posts, suggestions, and sympathy !!!!! Chris

I'm sorry! I thought I was the only crazy one when I went through the same thing recently with my 2004 Expedition, which I really loved even after 6 years. It was the only car I ever kept for that long. After a recent car crash, the repair estimate was so high that the insurance company totalled the car. They paid me high Bluebook value so I was actually able to upgrade to a fully upgraded 2010 Expedition Limited with all the bells and whistles, sunroof, voice activated Sirius, navigation system, DVD, shiny chrome, etc., everything my old Expedition didn't have. I was still so sad when I went to the body shop to retrieve all my belongings from my truck's nooks and crannies and it took awhile for me to love my new car, although it's wonderful. It was a bad accident and I had absolutely no injuries even though it killed my SUV so, while giving God my ultimate thanks, I also kind of feel like it "saved" me from injury (which is one of the reasons why I ultimately decided to not downsize to a smaller car - and I have 4 kids with a lot of stuff).