Pick-Up Truck Advice

[drew890]

Curious if anyone has experience with early 2000's Dodge Dakota pick-ups.
Any experiences or insights would be appreciated.
Please, please let's not let this go down the rabbit hole of Toyota Tacoma's vs The World! Lol

[XXFattyHunterXX]

Can't help you since I have no experience with a Dakota...but I had a Tacoma and never had a problem. [Tooth]

[00tec]

My experience with most of those little pickups is that you may as well get the bigger one because there isnt much difference in fuel mileage.

[Tim K]

I wouldn't consider a Taco myself. They're too small in the cab and the bed, and crappy butt-on-the-floor seating position annoys me. I have an '02 Tundra that I bought new, though, and it's about my favorite vehicle ever. It's certainly the best pickup I've owned. It's got 185,000 or so on the clock now and hasn't needed anything that was not on the maintenance schedule with the exception of a drive shaft bearing. Mileage is only slightly worse than a Taco, but the power is MUCH better.

No experience with the dodge, so I'm not much help.

[Great-Kazoo]

Get one with a manual transmission. The electric shift units on the auto take a shit anytime between 30 and 100K. Sometimes twice., from personal experience.

[hurley842002]

My experience with most of those little pickups is that you may as well get the bigger one because there isnt much difference in fuel mileage.
I know quite a few folks with Tacomas and Frontiers, and can't think of any of them who bought the pickup for excellent fuel mileage. Most of them (myself included when I had a Tacoma), went with a Tacoma because they don't need or want a full size pickup. I couldn't have gone the places I went in a full size without extensive body damage.

[CS1983]

Had a 2001 Dakota. Got rid of it cus it was a PITA and bad on fuel.

[MrPrena]

I've never owned a truck, but my former company had F150 for me to use. :D

[ray1970]

I vote no. I haven't owned one but the people I know that had them weren't very happy with them and didn't have them long.

I say if you're going to get crappy gas mileage and a bad ride you might as well be driving something bigger with more room for people and stuff.

[Martinjmpr]

If you just want something cheap and reliable buy my Mazda B2300 (AKA Ford Ranger.) ;) Runs great and gets 22 - 25 MPG. It's a 2wd though.

[speedysst]

Ive had my 2000 Dakota since 2004 (50k miles) and its around 209,000 miles now and running strong. So far Ive had to replace one injector a few years ago and the normal brake rotors/pads and calipers (because I got them cheap). It squeaks like a mouse being murdered with a violin but that should just be swaybar bushings. Ive had it up several not so good roads in Park County and havent had many major problems yet. Needs paint badly though. On average I get 18mpg except on longer highway trips. Then it jumps up to 20 mpg.

[Aardvark]

I had a '99 regular cab, short bed, 4x4, V8 w/manual transmission. Took it on trips from here to just south of Albuquerque, up I-70 passes for hunting, down to Spinny and 11-Mile for fishing and never had a problem until some stoner POS cut me off at an intersection. It averaged about 17mpg hiway, doing 65-70, hauled everything I needed, fit me like a glove. I foolishly used it in trade for a big Ram 2500 diesel 4x4. Just last year, I saw the li'l Dakota on a corner lot for sale: 185K miles, beat up, paint fade, bald tires, but when the engine turned over, I could tell it was still strong running. I'd have bought it but the dealer was a shiny suit, gold chains wearing, fast talkin, jiving, lying sack of .....

[BushMasterBoy]

All I can say is I have a 05 Colorado 2wd that gets 27mpg on the highway. 4 cyl 2.8 w/ auto

[ray1970]

I'm waiting for Irving to pop in and tell you that you probably don't even need a truck.

[ben4372]

I like them but have not known anyone with one that didn't need a big drive train repair. If I were buying one I'd find as low a mile one with the biggest V8 of that year. And buy it cheap, with the expectation of putting in a transmission some time in the future. I had a room mate with one when they were first interduced that had the 4.7 and it was a decent truck.

[Jeffrey Lebowski]

I know quite a few folks with Tacomas and Frontiers, and can't think of any of them who bought the pickup for excellent fuel mileage. Most of them (myself included when I had a Tacoma), went with a Tacoma because they don't need or want a full size pickup. I couldn't have gone the places I went in a full size without extensive body damage.

This. I had an 03 3/4 CTD, 07 1 ton CTD, a 13 Tacoma, and now a 16 Tacoma.
The 07 CTD was awesome. Had it for 9 years. Great truck with no issues.

But eventually you get tired of not being able to park it anywhere. The convenience of room in the bed and cab is now swapped with the convenience that I can park anywhere.

Anyway, always liked those Dakotas. No idea how reliable they are.

[Irving]

I'm waiting for Irving to pop in and tell you that you probably don't even need a truck.

I'll be using my other vehicle in the snow this year.

[ray1970]

I'll be using my other vehicle in the snow this year.


If you get stuck in the snow you can throw that ladder under the tires for traction. [Awesom]

[Jimmy]

I worked at a Dodge dealership in the early 2000s. The biggest problem I can recall with them were the automatic transmissions being replaced under warranty.

[drew890]

Thanks for all of the replies and time guys.
By no means would this be my primary vehicle. I was just looking for a weekend truck for runs to Lowes/Home Depot, hauling my dirt bike, and crappy weather. I found a good deal on a very well maintained 2002. Extended cab, manual, 4x4. It seems that it will fit my needs pretty well.

[BushMasterBoy]

The deal with the automatic transmissions is they are designed to fail. They almost never put a large enough transmission fluid cooler in front of the radiator. The transmission fluid pan is too small, you need a larger sump. Plus you almost never get a drain pug in the pan. Luckily there are aftermarket parts to correct this. 90% of A/T failures are heat related. Keep the fluid cool and change at regular intervals will cure most of the problems. Doesn't matter what truck this is...

[brutal]

The deal with the automatic transmissions is they are designed to fail. They almost never put a large enough transmission fluid cooler in front of the radiator. The transmission fluid pan is too small, you need a larger sump. Plus you almost never get a drain pug in the pan. Luckily there are aftermarket parts to correct this. 90% of A/T failures are heat related. Keep the fluid cool and change at regular intervals will cure most of the problems. Doesn't matter what truck this is...

Good advice. I've had a slightly larger pan with probe bung and a temp gauge on my 04.5 2500 CTD since nearly day 1. It's not the deep sump, but holds and extra 1.5qt as I recall.

Hard pulls it always runs 90* over ambient max.

[Great-Kazoo]

Thanks for all of the replies and time guys.
By no means would this be my primary vehicle. I was just looking for a weekend truck for runs to Lowes/Home Depot, hauling my dirt bike, and crappy weather. I found a good deal on a very well maintained 2002. Extended cab, manual, 4x4. It seems that it will fit my needs pretty well.


The manual transmission should have that unit running a few hundred K.

[jmg8550]

The manual transmission should have that unit running a few hundred K.
Also assuming it doesn't have the junk Mercedes 4.7L engine.

[Jer]

I wouldn't consider a Taco myself. They're too small in the cab and the bed, and crappy butt-on-the-floor seating position annoys me. I have an '02 Tundra that I bought new, though, and it's about my favorite vehicle ever. It's certainly the best pickup I've owned. It's got 185,000 or so on the clock now and hasn't needed anything that was not on the maintenance schedule with the exception of a drive shaft bearing. Mileage is only slightly worse than a Taco, but the power is MUCH better.

No experience with the dodge, so I'm not much help.

Butt on the floor seating position? When is the last time you sat in a Tacoma? 2002??

All that being said, the man asked about early 2000's Dakota's so....

I had a 2000 Dodge Dakota 5.9 R/T. I bought it brand new when I worked for Dodge and I'm not kidding when I say that the transmission was slipping at 5k miles on the odo. Makes no sense because while it was the 360 engine it was a RWD with a bed (read: no weight) over the rear tires to help with traction. A slight rain storm and that thing would go sideways from just lightly cracking open the throttle as gently as you could. I called it the 'countdown to worthlessness' whenever it was getting ready to rain. My street bikes got better traction in rain than that thing. Fit & finish was just okay, nothing amazing. You can get a Thunderform box for under the jump seat in the back that sounds absolutely amazing with only their mid-level subs. The factory head unit is meh at best and the interior isn't the best. Seats are serviceable but not very comfortable on longer drives more than across town for some grub. Paint was surprisingly low quality for the era and reminded me more of factory pain jobs from the 80's. To this day I see a lot of Dakotas from that late 90's early 2000's era with just awful paint jobs so apparently it wasn't just mine. For what it's worth, we had an awful lot of Dodge trucks come into the dealership around that time for transmission work and many had very low miles. It was a known weak point so know that that will likely be an issue for your truck. Otherwise, it was a decent truck. Not amazing but decent. I think I got about 8-9mpg in that thing mixed driving and some motorcycle hauling. Granted it had the 5.9L engine but it was crazy how much a 400lb motorcycle affected the fuel economy. I wouldn't even attempt to pull a trailer with it.

[Jer]

The manual transmission should have that unit running a few hundred K.

FWIW the smaller V8 from that same vintage had the same 0-60 time behind the manual transmission as the 5.9L R/T w/auto transmission. My buddy had a white double cab (mine was a quad) and it was a far better truck than my 2wd Dakota.