Hello,

I have been lurking on here for a while, but I now have a problem I could use some help with. I have a 95 V6 Mag with 80,000 miles on it. It has just started down shifting and up shifting erratically. I can be going 35 and its like it can’t make up it’s mind which gear it wants to be in. It’s the same way going down the highway. It helps once I get the cruise control set, but then any little dip in the road will cause it to shift. I am thinking that it is probably just a sensor going bad but I have no clue what that might be. Also when I come to a stop the idle will drop down to less then 400 RPM and when I try to take off it will stumble and sometimes die. Any help is greatly appreciated.

Thanks


I am thinking it may be the TPS?

 

Welcome to DodgeForum!

The transmission is hydraulically controlled with only the overdrive being electrical, so if it does this in other gears besides overdrive, its likely your throttle valve (TV) cable is out of adjustment. There is a link in FAQ2 for downloading the '95 Dakota FSM (its a rapidshare link), which will explain in detail how to adjust the TV cable.

The idle issue could be a bad IAC, TPS, MAP, or even a vacuum leak.

 

I actually think it may be the overdrive kicking on and off.

 

If its just the overdrive kicking on and off, it could definatley be the TPS has gone bad. According to the FSM, the computer takes in speed, temperature, and throttle position signals in deciding to activate overdrive, so the three best culprits are the speed sensor, coolant temp sensor, and throttle position sensor.

 

On my way home yesterday I turned the OD off and noticed that there is a slight miss. I can't hear the engine missing but I can feel it and see the RPMs drop a bit. It is worse at lower RPMs. When the OD is on everytime it misses it woud shift out of OD.

The idle has gotten very bad. The truck will die every time I try to take off from a stop. I'm not sure where to start. Is there any way to check the IAC, TPS, or MAP, or do I just start replacing things until it is fixed?

 

Actually there is a way to check them. Download the '95 FSM from FAQ2 like I mentioned before and it gives a procedure for checking the sensors with a multimeter. Have you done an ignition tune up on it recently?

 

I went ahead and took it into the shop. It turns out that the idle is just fine. My gauge says it's idling at 400rpm but it is actually 700rpm. As far as the dieing and kicking out of overdrive, that looks like it was a bad thermostat. I never would have thought of that. That's all they changed and it is running fine so far, but I haven't really got to drive it much since then.

 

Yeah, like I said above, the computer takes input from the coolant temp sensor, so if the truck never gets up to temp, the overdrive won't kick in. I had that happen to me once where my thermostat got stuck open and overdrive never worked.

Glad you got it worked out though.