Dodge Ram Trucks Sold With Inaccurate Stickers, Class Action Alleges

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Chrysler was hit with a false advertising class action lawsuit Monday by a South Carolina man alleging that the safety and informational sticker on its Dodge Ram trucks included inaccurate information about the rear axle ratio.

Plaintiff Robert K. Besley, Jr. claims that Chrysler affixed standard “Monroney” stickers to its Dodge Rams indicating that the truck was “equipped with optional equipment that included larger rear axle ratios than the standard equipment listed on the Monroney sticker.”

Besley claims in his Dodge Ram class action lawsuit that he purchased a 2014 Ram 1500 Big Horn pickup truck in January 2014 from a local dealership in Aiken, South Carolina. On the vehicle, when he was shopping for trucks on the car lot “was a Monroney sticker containing information about the vehicle.”

It is required by law that this standard sticker be attached to either the “side window or windshield of every new car sold in the United States and can only be removed by the consumer.”

Car dealerships can be fined up to $1,000 if the the sticker is missing from the vehicle and there are other fines and penalties the dealership can be charged “if the sticker is altered illegally,” the Dodge Ram pickup truck class action lawsuit says.

Information on the Monroney sticker includes “the retail delivered price suggested by the manufacturer for each accessory or item of optional equipment, physically attached to such an automobile at the time of its delivery to such dealer.”

The sticker on the 2014 Ram 1500 Big Horn pickup truck that Besley purchased said that the truck came with the “Customer Preferred Package 26Z,” which includes a 3.55 Rear Axle Ratio. However, the South Carolina man later found out that the truck actually had a 3.21 Rear Axle Ratio, the class action lawsuit explains.

In October 2014, with about 15,000 miles on the truck, Besley began receiving phone calls from Chrysler Customer Service “to inform him that the the Monroney sticker located in his truck’s window at the time of purchase was incorrect,” specifically that his new truck was really “only equipped with a 3.21 Rear Axle Ratio.”

According to the Dodge Ram pickup truck class action lawsuit, the reason that he was in search of a truck with a 3.55 Rear Axle Ratio was “because he wanted the increased towing capacity provided by the larger rear axle ratio.”

Chrysler offered Besley 750 Mopar dollars, however, he says that “the cost of increasing the rear axle ratio is substantially more than $750, and replacement parts and labor can cost as much as several thousand dollars.”

The South Carolina man claims in his class action lawsuit that Chrysler Customer Service never “offered a complimentary replacement of his rear axle.”

Besley believes that with 350,000 Ram pickup trucks sold by Chrysler annually, others also purchased vehicles with “a deceptive Monroney sticker” attached, making a class action lawsuit the right route for his allegations and making an individual Dodge Ram truck lawsuit “impracticable.”

He is looking to represent a nationwide class of those who either purchased or leased “Ram pickup trucks which contained false and deceptive information concerning the equipped rear axle ratio at the time of purchase or lease.”

The South Carolina man is charging Chrysler with unjust enrichment, promissory estoppel, negligent misrepresentation and negligence per se.

He wants the court “to create a common fund to remedy” the rear axle to was stated on the Monroney sticker when he purchased the vehicle.

Counsel information for Chrysler is not yet available.

The plaintiff is represented by William E. Hopkins Jr. of Hopkins Law Firm LLC and William G. Besley of Howser Newman & Besley LLC.

The Chrysler Dodge Ram Truck Class Action Lawsuit is Besley v. FCA US LLC, Case No. 1:15-cv-01511, in the U.S. District Court for the District of South Carolina.