Yes, it senses slippage and computer locks the transfer case up and sends power to front axle. It’s mostly to give you 4WD capability if your rear wheels start slipping while cutting down on front tire wear.
I can assure you Ram has come a long way since 1997.
2012/13 Ford F150s were a pretty nice truck. I had a 2012 Harley Davidson150 with the 6.2 V8 in it. .. I really liked that truck. Super comfortable and had more than enough power. ..I think it was 400 HP or so.
Can't remember GM's tradename on that (Mag something ?).... IIRC, it was something like a ferromagnetic fluid in the shock, that changed viscosity with applied voltage. May have been on Vettes, similar time frame Caddy got it.Wow... talk about a misleading marketing name! I had to go look that up, thinking Chevy was putting both traction control and stability control into their trucks, which would indeed be a high-end feature.
But no... "StabiliTrak" has nothing to do with stability control, it's just GM's lame name for plain old boring traction control.I'm sure that if argued in court, they'd be able to point to some small proprietary feature that justifies not just calling it Traction Control, but it doesn't appear to be anything significant.
Some cars, Cadillac actually pioneered it decades ago, have dynamic viscosity fluid in their shock absorbers to provide stability control by instantly changing the stiffness of the shock absorber on each wheel. Mercedes worked with Billstein to develop another similar technology, now sold as the DampTronic, and used in AMG cars from Mercedes and SRT cars from Dodge. It would actually be useful in a pickup truck to limit body roll in corners or to stiffen rear shocks when load is increased through towing or hauling, but not a cheap upgrade on already expensive heavy duty suspension.
I will admit I didn't like the F150s from the 90s when they made them more "car like" with the aerodynamic sloped front end. A friend had one, and every time I got in the passenger side I would hit my head on the handle that stuck out from the a pillar. Fortunately the handle doesn't stick out like that on my 2013. I'm sure all trucks have come a long way since 97. Every manufacturer has had and will have issues from time to time. They will change and adapt. Other than too much tech and government regulations the overall reliability of even the worst trucks is better than in the 70s and 80s. I honestly have not driven a Ram in years and was curious about the newer ones. My 97 had the 5.9 gasser, and it still ran perfectly smooth when the transmission died. I parked it at 225k with the rest of the truck falling apart. I had gotten tired of working on it all the time.
In those 80s trucks ABS stood for anti braking system.
Back in the 90s I did a lot of work for a Dodge dealer and would trade out Ram 1500s every year or so for a new one. Never kept them past 20k miles. They were all the rage back then with the new body style. We also had a number of 7.3 F350s. ..That E4OD trans was not up to the challenge behind that motor. They would grenade at 70k miles like clockwork.
