Top 5 Problems Dodge Dakota Truck 2nd Generation 1997-2004

In this video, we are going to talk about the top five problems we found for this second generation Dakota. Not all Dakotas are bad, we just found some problems.

So problem number one is rough idle only at idle, not acceleration. Acceleration it kind of clears up a little bit. But you have...if you have the 39, or V6, or the V8, you are going to get a rough idle. Acceleration probably okay, maybe a little hesitation, but at idle if it starts to shake and stall constantly, you are going to be pulling the hair out of your head because you cannot physically see the problem.

What it is is the intake valley pan. So your intake is right here, it is this big aluminum high rise that has all the injectors that are going into it. Underneath that, in the valley of the block of the engine, they put a metal pan on with a gasket, it has got like 12 little 8-millimeter bolts. And the gasket gets popped out, so it suck in air, so it is sucking in a vacuum, it makes the car rough idle and shake a lot. So check your vacuum lines, there is one boot famously over here on the V6 and V8 of these Dodges, there is one just boot on the side of the intake over here. That splits also. But if you repair that and it's gone, great. If not, unfortunately the intake has to come up, and replace that valley pan gasket.

You'll also get a code, PO300. So PO300 followed by PO301, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, if it's an 8-cylinder, 6 if it is 6-cylinder. And that is because the vacuum leak is causing all cylinders to misfire. So if you change the distributor cap and rotor, wires and plugs and it is still there, check out that valley pan.

Number two, PO131 sometimes followed along with PO340, stalling, misfire, running condition, no start, excessive crank. We're talking about the crank sensor, yup, pretty famous on a lot of Dodges. It is in the bell housing, it does Jeeps also, the same exact drive train. They get corroded, magnets get lost, they break off, and there's a no start, because there's no signal to the actual distributor from the PCM so it doesn't even know the engine is cranking. Place of location happens to be the most difficult, right here in the bell housing. See that harness right there with that red and green and black wire coming out of it? That is it. That is the location. It just has two little bolts, sometimes one bolt, that mount it to the side of the bell housing, and it picks up the pulse on the actual flywheel.

Number three, PO455, large evap leak. Well, we're hear underneath the vehicle, and we're looking at the purge canister right here. What happens on these Dodges, I don't know where they got their hoses from, but they look visually on the outside okay, but what happens when you take them apart, they actually are breaking up from the inside. So they're collapsing internally. So it is not getting the purging that it needs to. And you are going to check for the black rubber inside, see it is not corroded or breaking up, sometimes you can go like this, and a whole bunch of the black rubber dry rotted will come out. You're going to check all the hoses, if you don't have a smoke machine, this will be the quickest test to do for a large evap leak.
Another thing to check for, is when you disconnect that hose right there, if you see gasoline coming out, that tells you that this canister is soaked with fuel, because it actually caused a vacuum and it's taking the fuel out of the gas tank. Then it is no good, the charcoal is filled up, it's gone. So code PO455 is a large evap leak; easiest place to check first always is the gas cap. So what we do is you always just get a quick visual, check the gas cap, make sure it is on tight. You want to check this rubber seal, make sure there is no dry rot or cracks, and then let's not forget the filler neck. These rot sometimes, and you'll find big piles of rust on 'em, and when that happens, it won't make a seal. Second but not least, someone might have got that code, and put an aftermarket gas cap on. Some of them work, some of them don't. It all depends on the vehicle. You can put an aftermarket cap on, and it'd be great. I've had many come back with a new cap but it was an aftermarket cap, not the manufacturer's cap. Code kept kicking, got the factory cap, code went away.

Don't forget to check your filler hoses. Those can corrode and look like they've been replaced, they're definitely not factory. And that filler neck is rusted, and that more than likely is going to cause a leak.

Number four, manual transmission on a Dodge, sometimes you're putting it in gear and you're driving down the road and then it just won't go into gear right, it kind of like growls and then clicks in, and you think, maybe I need a clutch. Well, Dodge has a problem with the throw out play on the crank. So let's check that first. So Dodge says this problem occurs from end play in the crank. So what that means is your crank that runs through the center of your engine, which has the pistons, connecting rods, and the oil pan going up, that has end play. So what you want to do is you want to get yourself a nice pry bar, and you're going to just gently grab that monobalancer and you're going to push out, and then I am just going to go against the sway bar here, and push back in. I have zero end play on this. And I also have zero shifting problem at this time. But if you replaced your clutch and all your slave cylinder, your master, and you say geeze, it still has a grinding, check that play before you go replacing everything else.
So when you're checking the end play in the crank for that checking the shifting problem, it is always good to check over your clutch, too, if you haven't touched it or replaced it. Hydraulic pressure is the main cause. So this is a slave cylinder, and right here is a pressure line with hydraulic fluid in it, which is just brake fluid DOT 3, and it goes in there. Now I see no leaks here. This bell housing would have fluid coming out of here if the seal in there was no good on the slave cylinder. Check your whole housing, bell housing, out. There is no fluid other than gear fluid back here at the gear box section. But up front here, it is just the clutch. There should be no fluid coming out of here. If it is, check your master for low fluid, and also check your master for seals.

Number five, ABS light is on. You might be like, I had that problem, and I could never find the ABS sensor. Because on these Dodgers, there is one, it is in the rear differential. It is also called the speed sensor. Let's look at it. So here we are at the rear differential, and the ABS speed sensor is located right here, top side of the pumpkin, facing down. These go bad quite often, and what you do is you can look up a schematic to do some testing if you have a little scanner. See if you get that code, and if you do, just pull that sensor out, and if you find metal all over it on the magnet piece, you've got a problem, and it is not just the sensor.

Hope this video helped you out. If you liked what you saw, don't forget to hit the subscribe button, ring the bell, turn on all notifications so you can watch thousands of our videos.