Sluggish driving. No power pulling a small trailer. Hard to get up small hills. Bad mpg, even from a dodge. 04 ram 1500 5.7

Screeching noise is oil on the belt. Power loss & leak sounds like a head gasket.

Did you turn off your overdrive to pull the trailer? If not, you may have overheated your transmission and possibly now have internal damage.

Does the trany fluid smell burnt? Might want to have the trany flushed - torque converter too - and replace the filter in the trans. FYI you may know this but it is not recomended that overdrive be enabled when pulling a trailer - especially a heavily loaded one. Does your town have lots of hills - this is an added stain on the trany.

Did you find that fuse under dash or hood.Sometimes there's one under hood, or dash that may be labeled aux power or something like that. Also, did you check it with key on and vehicle started as well? Can you not wire jack to battery on front of trailer or don't have battery there?

All vehicles will lose a certain amount of power when going up hill or towing depending on how steep the hill or how heavy the load. Do you shift down when needed.

sounds like an ittermittant electrical problem like a coil. I had a similar issue and thought I had tranny problems but it was just a coil

I had a similiar problem on my 1999 Dodge Ram 1500 Conversion Van. It ended up being a partial collapse of the catalytic converter which didn't allow adequate exhaust. The problem only showed itself because I could not get over 55 mph going up a small hill.

Check the owners manual to be sure of the location of the trailer fuses. Most have several locations for the fuses. Other than that, look for a loose or corroded connection. Also check http://www.etrailer.com/faq-wiring.aspx.

I have seen once before that the fuse box was bad on a 2003 Dodge 3500. I had power in and nothing out. We had to replace the box. Not cheap! Hope it is simple like a loose connection though. I think I had to pull the inner fender on the drivers side to access the bottom of the fuse box. Pain in the ****, but...

I'd get a 12vdc test light if you don't have one already & start from plug, and keep probing back from there. It may be as simple as a bad connection under truck where joined into harness.