2018 RAM 2500 — Complaint #2163904
Open-data reference.
NHTSA Complaint about ELECTRICAL SYSTEM: INTEGRATED TRAILER BRAKE CONTROL filed January 7, 2026
NHTSA complaint #2163904 (ODI reference 11709365) concerns a 2018 RAM 2500 and was filed on January 7, 2026. The owner reports the failure occurred on June 1, 2024. The vehicle had 82,000 miles on the odometer at the time of the incident. The report was geocoded to Georgia based on the filer's self-reported location. The affected component is categorized as electrical system: integrated trailer brake control, one of NHTSA's standardized taxonomy codes used to group defect patterns across make, model, and year.
The filer flagged the following severity indicators: crash: no, fire: no, injuries: 0, fatalities: 0. No crash, fire, or fatality was associated with this report, which places it in the early-warning stream rather than the priority-review stream. Because a VIN was supplied, this complaint is tied to a specific vehicle and not just a model-year cohort.
Individual complaints are consumer-submitted and unverified by NHTSA engineers — the agency's role at this stage is to collect, index, and make them searchable. What matters for federal action is the pattern: when many owners of the same RAM 2500 cohort independently describe similar electrical system: integrated trailer brake control failures, defect investigators have grounds to open a PE and request manufacturer data. Related filings for the same vehicle and component appear below, and the detail page for the full 2018 RAM 2500 shows the complete component-level complaint distribution alongside any active investigations or recalls.
Complaint Description
The contact owns a 2018 Ram 2500. The contact stated that while driving at various speeds and hauling an RV, the trailer brakes intermittently became inoperable. The message "Trailer Brakes Disconnected - Check Trailer Wiring" was displayed. The contact replaced the trailer wiring; however, the failure persisted. The contact received notification of NHTSA Campaign Number: 24V896000 (Service Brakes, Hydraulic); however, the part to do the recall repair was not yet available. The vehicle was taken to the dealer, where it was diagnosed and determined that the HCU had failed, and the failure was related to the trailer brakes' failure. The vehicle was not repaired. The contact stated that the manufacturer had exceeded a reasonable amount of time for the recall repair. The manufacturer was made aware of the issue and informed the contact that the recall remedy was available. However, the dealer sent a document to the contact that stated that the part for the model year of the vehicle was not
Complaint Details
| NHTSA Complaint ID | 2163904 |
| ODI Number | 11709365 |
| Date Filed | January 7, 2026 |
| Failure Date | June 1, 2024 |
| VIN | 3C6UR5NL3JG |
Similar ELECTRICAL SYSTEM: INTEGRATED TRAILER BRAKE CONTROL Complaints for 2018 RAM 2500
Source: NHTSA Vehicle Complaints Database. Component taxonomy and severity codes are standardized by NHTSA Office of Defects Investigation.
Read our methodology — how this data is sourced, computed, and verified.