They same day I had the tranny temp problems during a sleet/snow storm, my coworkers Dodge acted up badly. Lots of black smoke and no power. He likes to bust drifts non-stop on the side of the road. Anyways, we started troubleshooting and pulled the aircleaner. It was really bent and packed full of snow! He drives an 06 4x4 with a ranchhand front bumper replacement. Not sure why this happened, but it must have been the powerjoke and duracrap gods messing with us.

 

I just looked at my truck again. The A/C condenser is in the front so if it got packed with snow it would block the airflow to the intercooler. The tans cooler is between the intercooler and the radiator. The location of the trans cooler would not get much airflow although the fan would pull air from under the bumper to keep the water temp low. Just IMHO but I believe that is the source of your heating condition.

 

Nope it has been a problem on some trucks since 2003.

 

And about an hour ago, I popped the hood and noticed something else. The hail storm I had to drive in beat the heck out of my condenser fins. Somehow around a hundred little hail ***** came through the grill and mangled the fins. I'll post pics when I get to the house after this job is over.

 

I was working a jobup near Arlington Wyoming when a buddy of mine called me and told me his Ram stopped in the middle of the field and wouldn't run. I drove out and found that his whole engine compartment had packed itself full of snow while driving around. Engine hadn't warmed up yet.

Somewhat related... When I got back from Iraq in January, I pulled my truck out of storage. I drove that thing 12000 miles and pulled the aircleaner to clean it. The whole airbox had been turned into a den by a field mouse. The whole air box was packed full of hay, and one dead field=mose who couldn't escape once I put the truck back into service. Truck never skipped a beat. No loss of power or MPG as a result of the restriction.

 

My air filter did the same thing, it seems snow does get into the air box and jams the filter, the suction power then pulls the filter up into the box.

 

To prevent mice from gaining access to my filter, i put a piece of screen material between the box and the filter.
So far, it works good and doesnt restrict airflow.