Sorry about your trouble.
Yes they go out quite often. Your lucky to get 250K miles out of yours, imo.
I have put on 2 in 250K miles on several of my trucks at work over the years.
I don''t know how handy you are but I would have put it in on the spot to avoid a 400 dollar tow bill and did that once in a parts store parking lot while I was out of town racing on my 7.4L GM truck I had for 13 years.
Like said the plastic is crap, especially mopar ones.
I keep one in stock at work, that's how often I have that problem.