Pick-Up Truck Advice

[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.