While hauling the camping rig out to Assateague Island in Maryland, I felt that Laraine was low on power. There was no check engine light, but my fuel economy was dropping fast and I had to downshift quite a bit. I continued down the road while watching gauges and discovered that she wasn't building 30PSI of boost anymore. It would get around 20PSI, maybe a touch more, and that was it. I thought there may be a boost leak, but no, it was something far more expensive! The Turbocharger Wastegate Actuator Solenoid. What?!?

Eventually Laraine did throw a check engine light with code P0243 "Open or Shorted Condition Detected in the Turbocharger Wastegate Solenoid". Of course, it didn't throw that code until AFTER we had done the troubleshooting and knew where the problem was. Figures!

Laraine is my 2006 Ram 2500 Mega Cab Laramie with the 24V Cummins and a G56 6-speed manual transmission. This is pretty much the same setup in all the 24v Cummins in the 3rd gen Rams. I believe that's 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, and the first half of 2007. They switched to the 6.7 in 2007. That being said, the 6.7 Cummins might have the same setup for the wastegate. Someone can correct me in the comments if I'm wrong.

Thank you so much for watching!