My step-daughter bought a 1999 Durango a week ago. The first couple of days, it was sluggish, nearly dying during idle a couple of times. A mechanic friend of mine told me she needed to put a can of B12 ChemTool in it since it was older, it may need some clean out.

Last night, she went to O'Reilly's and got Chevron Fuel Injector Cleaner because they told her it was the best stuff they had. She drove it for a couple of hours after that then parked it for the night. Went out to start it this morning and it would start but kept dying. Giving it more gas did not keep it going.

In addition, the dealer said that someone had left all the lights on overnight and the battery had needed charging but he'd replace it if it was still a problem in a few days ( I think this is unrelated to the problem at hand).

Any ideas? Could the fuel injector cleaner be the problem?

 

The 1st gen durangos are very sensitive to power needs. If your battery gets weak such as in the case of leaving the lights on overnight to deplete the battery, it can cause problems with engine idle as well as other things.

I would go with the battery replacement to ensure you got a good strong battery before doing further troubleshooting.

 

Yeah, definitely get the battery replaced. A weak battery or bad connections to the battery can cause issues like that.

I'm surprised the lights didn't turn themselves off after a while, I accidentally left mine on once and they shut off on their own after a while to keep the battery from going dead.

 

I was going off the info she'd given me, which was next to nothing. She said it had started then died. Went home at lunch and tried to start it and it was dead, definitely battery. Turns out, though, not only battery but alternator as well. Replaced both and it's running like new.

Thanks for the replies!