Two owners of 2025 Ram 1500 pickups say the truck’s new 3.0-liter twin-turbocharged Hurricane inline-six cuts out while they are driving it. Charlene Norberg of Wisconsin and Tim Craig of Florida are the named plaintiffs in a proposed nationwide class action against the manufacturer, FCA, and their account is of a truck that stalls, loses power and, in one case, reported every onboard safety system as disabled at about 1,200 miles.
The allegations are unproven. FCA has not answered in court, and no recall, settlement or claims process has been reported for the engine. What the filing offers is a detailed, owner-level description of how the failures are said to begin, and a technical theory about where they come from.
Norberg’s and Craig’s trucks
According to the complaint in Norberg et al. v. FCA, a federal filing in the Eastern District of Michigan, Norberg bought her Ram 1500 in August 2024 and saw it stall repeatedly during remote-start routines, then overheat on a highway and drop into limp mode before it had to be towed. Craig bought a Ram 1500 Rebel in May 2025. At roughly 1,200 miles, the dashboard told him the safety systems were disabled, and the dealership needed more than a month to diagnose it, ending with a brake booster replacement.
The pattern they describe is not limited to remote start. The suit lists stalling, misfires, hesitation under acceleration and loss of power at highway speed, plus battery drain and, in some cases, loss of power-assisted braking.
Reporting by CarComplaints adds that some of the trouble allegedly surfaced with only hundreds of miles on the odometer. That detail matters to the plaintiffs’ argument, because a defect that appears in the first weeks of ownership is harder for a manufacturer to attribute to wear, maintenance or driving habits, and it is the basis for the warranty and concealment counts described below.
Control modules at the center of the theory
The complaint does not blame the engine’s mechanical hardware. It points to the engine control module and, or, the powertrain control module, the computers that manage fueling, boost and ignition. In the plaintiffs’ telling, improper calibration and programming in those modules interacts badly with the engine’s sensors and turbochargers, producing faulty fault codes and unstable combustion control. ClassAction.org’s write-up quotes the filing’s argument that a vehicle that unpredictably loses propulsion is not fit for its ordinary purpose of safe and reliable transportation.
The same coverage says FCA tried software updates, module reprogramming and sensor replacements without success, and that some owners brought trucks in as many as eight times. AutoGuide’s account describes the alleged flaw as both software and hardware in the modules, a wider framing than the programming-only language in the complaint’s own summary, and the difference is one of the points a court would eventually have to sort out.
Classes, claims and the amount in controversy
The proposed nationwide class covers current and former owners and lessees of 2025 Ram 1500 trucks with the 3.0-liter Hurricane in the United States, with separate Wisconsin and Florida subclasses. The causes of action are violations of the Wisconsin and Florida deceptive trade practices statutes, breach of implied warranty, fraudulent concealment and unjust enrichment. The plaintiffs ask for class certification, repair or replacement, warranty extensions, damages for overpayment and diminished value, civil penalties, punitive damages and a jury trial.
The dollar figure attached to the case in several write-ups, over $5 million, is the aggregate amount in controversy that federal jurisdiction under the Class Action Fairness Act requires. It is a threshold the plaintiffs must plausibly allege to be in federal court, and it is not an itemized demand for what the two named owners say they lost. Actual damages, if any are ever awarded, would depend on how many trucks fall inside the class and whether a court certifies it at all.
To show FCA knew, the filing cites pre-production testing, warranty claims, dealership service records and more than 100 complaints to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, YouTube and owner forums. It also points to similar complaints about 2022 Ram 1500 trucks that federal regulators have examined. AboutLawsuits reports that the plaintiffs are represented by The Miller Law Firm and Sauder Schelkopf, and that the safety argument rests on the claim that stalling at highway speed exposes drivers and passengers to an increased risk of collision.
Docket 2:26-cv-13040 is where the case sits, and ClaimDepot’s tracker states plainly that FCA has not answered or admitted wrongdoing, with no settlement, no claims process and no money available. Until FCA files its response, the owners’ descriptions in the complaint remain the only detailed public account of what happened to these two trucks.
This article was produced with the assistance of AI and reviewed by Morning Overview editors prior to publication.
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