Whats the deal with 90's V8 Dakotas?

I've seen 3 lately, under 2 grand, around 160,000 miles, with less body rot than I'm used to seeing on Dodge around here, meaning they have bodies that are still in tact.  They also claim to have clean titles, run, stop, drive, and have good inspections. 

This doesn't make sense in PA, especially this time of year when 4x4s are open to the winter tax, so something must be wrong. 

Do the frames rot out before the body? Transmissions or motors(318 5.2) die early? Just a fluke and I should borrow money to buy all of them?

Really I think I'd be pushing the line trying to rally x it, but it would fit my other truck needs especially well being that odd size between a ranger and F150. 

I just picked up a 97 Grand Cherokee with the same 5.2L-44RE combo that they ran. The engines seem to hold up well. Transmissions might be slightly below average from what I can tell. At least in the GCs the body electronics and engine and trans control modules seem to be the weak points.

I will say, the 318 is properly quick in the GC. It would be a hoot in a light 2wd pickup. 

I drove a 90 with a 318 for a pretty long time. I liked it, but it was pretty worn out when I got it, and strangely, didn't get a lot less worn out as I drove it.

I owned a 92 Dakota ext cab with the 5.2L (318) Magnum and A518 trans (727 trans with overdrive). Dad bought it new and I got it from him. Decent truck, engine was reliable as was the trans. Truck was decent, pretty much a tank with minimal issues. It got the mileage of a tank, about 15 mpg on a good day, slightly more on the highway.

Also had a '00 Dakota R/T before the 92, it did everything a bit better. Despite the 5.9L and 3.92 gears, it got about 16-18 mpg, which surprised me. Was a fun truck to drive, definitely had better seats and interior than the 92.

I wanted one of those so much when they first came out. Then a coworker bought one - holy crap was it small.  Glad I dodged that bullet.  The "Ram" looking ones are surprisingly small inside, so in the end they give you all of the practicality of a small truck like a Toyota or Nissan, but with the fuel economy of a full-size truck.  The previous version was slightly larger, or at least felt like it. The 318 is a reliable engine, but efficient it is not. Expect MPG in the low teens.

My ex had a '00 with the 4.7 that survived her wrath, then got passed along to her 2nd ex, who last I knew is still driving it.

My ex BIL had an early 90's Dakota with the 318, and I remember a fuel problem that required us to dissect the wiring harness all the way around the engine bay, eventually finding a crimped connection along the firewall that had corroded/burnt through.

my friend has a 93 ext cab he dailys and tows with. the transmission seems to be the weak point but his has held up well the last 5 years. including a swap to a factory lsd and lots of burnouts. There just too big for the mini truck crowd and too small for the fullsize guys it seems.

Good for a smallish truck, as stated above they are VERY reliable and seem to hold up to the most ham-fisted owner. I had a 1993 5.2 auto 4x4 that I picked up with 40k on the clock, sold it to my brother (one of the horsemen) with 160k miles and he drove it into the ground around 240k miles.

The only major repairs were a fuel pump, water pump, and coil.

FYI I have been to Rally cross events and seen a full size Silverado running.

Paul B

Best truck around at that time for a mid size truck. Very reliable. The best compliment it could get was when I was at a friend's house party and one of the GM small truck powertrain chief engineers was also there stated they pulled their small truck from the us market because they couldn't compete with the Dakota and minivan combo that Chrysler had. Then thanks me for Berkeley-ing up the third gen such that his bosses were not going to shrink his group any more and instead bring back the small pickups to the us market. 

The third gen was a failure as it removed most of the advantages of the first two generations. 

The key thing to research is parts availability. Chrysler is a small car company and can't afford to keep parts being made forever. Their may be some unobtainium dodge Dakota part that is driving them extinct. 

Last time I need parts for one I had all the parts that day. NAPA is the place!

I borrowed a friend's once and had issues when picking up a rental trailer. At the time (don't know about now) they didn't consider it a full-size truck (which it isn't) and wouldn't rent me a trailer. Went somewhere else and they did.

kb58 said:

I borrowed a friend's once and had issues when picking up a rental trailer. At the time (don't know about now) they didn't consider it a full-size truck (which it isn't) and wouldn't rent me a trailer. Went somewhere else and they did.

That's a good point. I towed my '77 Colt rally car on an open trailer behind mine a few times & it was never a problem. However, for reference I once hauled a bar-sized pool table(slate top) in our Dakota and it felt like it was on the bump stops. About a year or so later I hauled the same table in our 88 1/2-ton Chevy, and you couldn't even tell it was back there.

Alright, so I should be looking more into these. Honestly with better negotiation skills on my part I could probably drive one home this weekend. 

For my definition of "truck stuff": getting steel drops from the metal shops, hauling plywood and insulation, rally cross would really help, maybe towing or carrying the odd tractor or quad, occasional offroading but no big mud or rocks. Maybe bringing home car parts, trying to lift an engine out of a trunk sucked 10 years ago and I'm not getting into any better shape. Towing the pig cooker around when it is completed.

Realistically, air shocks and a nonexistent smyth performance ute conversion for the p71 would fill all my truck needs. 

I'm pretty much decided on selling the Miata in the spring, and while the Dakota might not be big enough to tow the crown vic, it'll be big enough to drag it in an emergency, which is all I really need. So towing vehicles isn't a priority, yet. 

It just seems strange to see such cheap inspected 4wd vehicles, but I guess Xmas bills need paid now. 

RevRico said:

It just seems strange to see such cheap inspected 4wd vehicles, but I guess Xmas bills need paid now. 

I think they've just gotten tarred with the same brush as other '90s Chrysler products. The engine is a moderately updated 318 and pretty strong. Transmission reliability may have been a relative weak point, but isn't a grenade, and using Chrysler-specific transmission fluid is supposed to be a big help.

I seem to recall two of mine having crank sensor issues? Maybe cam sensor issues? My 93 ext cab V8 got a mopar 340hp 360 swapped in and was a terror, it was pretty straight forward. I couldn’t believe the rear end and trans held up to it for a year before I traded it for a 1500. I had a 97 RT also that I ordered (I was in high school) so out there somewhere is a yellow regular cab with purple graphics with my name in the glove box. It wasn’t really good at anything but using gas.

My dad had two of them.  Extended cab 318 and the earlier, square-bodied model with the (I think) 3.9 V6.  Between the two, I'd take the V6 all day long and twice on Sunday.  Might seem anemic now, but IIRC the V6 was about 190/195 hp and a roughly equivalent or slightly higher torque number.  The factory numbers on the 318 were stronger, but it never felt like it pulled anywhere near as strong as the V6.  V6 was also a stick, which definitely added to the fun factor.  No doubt the extended cab and 4x4 had something to do with that (the V6 was a short bed, single cab, 2wd).  As indicated above, the V8 never saw a gas station it didn't want/need to visit.  

I always thought of the Dakota as a narrow version of a full size truck. 

My dad ran a 96 from ~32k to ~255k. We basically retired it because the core plugs finally rotted through. I planned to swap a 5.9 into it and keep going, but the 5.9 we got had some problems and sort of stalled the project, and then dad decided he wanted a bigger truck anyway so we got an 01 Ram. 

The dakota needed very little work until high miles. Some time after 200k i rebuilt the trans (because of hardened seals, it needed few hard parts) and had to replace the timing chain because the original became loose enough to skip a tooth. Chrysler installed a chain guide in later years that prevented that from happening. Other than that, i think it was just a starter, water pumps, heater core, just normal stuff. 

I actually think the 2g (92 to 96 in my opinion) are one of the best truck designs in existence. I don't like the 97-04 quite as much although it was objectively better in many ways. The interiors didn't hold up as well in my opinion and it gained weight and exterior size without gaining actual utility. I like pretty much all the engines they came with, although i would hold up the 3.7 and 4.7 as the low points of the reliability range. One interesting factoid is that you could only get the 5.9L in the r/t or... a quad cab. I'm pretty sure quad cab manual 5.9L trucks exist. I put a fair amount of miles on a 2.5L/5spd 2000 model and it got 24-27mpg and handled surprisingly well. 

Honestly, i like most of them. 

My buddy has a '98 V6 manual 2wd.  All the horizontal surfaces have major paint decay.   Its a decent beater.  He tossed on 17x9s from the RT with some reasonable rubber and its a *lot* less horrible to drive than a full size truck.  Its got a meaty powerband down low but falls on its face up top.  It does truck things pretty well.

I feel like if the V6 could breathe up top, it would be a pretty fun little truck.  I like it better than the S10s and Rangers of that era I can recall.

Oh, and I don't know if this is common to all of them, but the driver's side of the driver's seat bolster is pretty much collapsed so you lean to the left when you drive, or have to use your core to compensate.  

^My '97 Ram's seat was like that when I bought it with only 48K miles. I thought maybe a really fat guy owned it before me but after hearing about other's seats it might have just been normal.