So I grabbed up a 99 durango 5.2L today for $1000. I needed a fast replacement for my land rover that finally died, and I found this for the right price and picked it up. It's got 195k miles on the clock, body is nice aside from some expected rust spots, engine bay is clean, no strange lights on the dash, no mayonnaise in the oil, interior is *******ly mint, and it has the front and rear bull bars with nice flat black wheels and meaty 31x10.5 tires perfect for the snow disaster in the northeast this year.

The bad, it has a pretty bad exhaust leak that sounds like its coming from around under the passenger seat, although I havent gotten under the car yet to confirm. Right now, no matter how hard I floor the throttle it just doesnt wanna accelerate. I have trouble getting it up to highway speeds on flat ground if im lucky. At idle if I open the throttle it revs up no problem at all aside from sounding ****ty with the leak, but foward gears are super sluggish. Reverse seems to have enough ***** to spin the tires. My guess was exhaust malfunction (clogged cat, or exhaust scavenging starvation from the leak) or fuel starvation, but when I saw the reverse gear with more power I was stumped. The tranny doesnt seem to be slipping at all but I cant rule it out and being my 1st dodge truck, I have no idea where to start with this car. Please Help!!

 

I would recommend crawling under the vehicle to see if there are holes. The muffler is under the passenger side, and the cat is forward of that.

Sounds like it could be a plugged cat, and maybe they tried to drill it out or the muffler.

Ask the previous owner, if possible, what they know about this.

 

Took it to my mechanic, he said the Y pipe is rusted through and the Manifold bolts are rusted out pretty badly too, so that's gonna be my 1st step. Until that leak is fixed there's no knowing what wrong. Im hopeful fixing the leak might even solve this one (if I were ever that lucky lol)

 

well good enough news. So I took it to my mechanic today, he found a big leak in the Y pipe, sent me to the muffler shop he uses, good guys over there too. They put it up on the rack for free, and it turns out its not just the Y pipe, but the manifolds and all the piping is ****ed, $2200 estimate. BUT that wouldn't cause the truck to be a slug, so we start running the works, No OBD codes, a full tune up was recently done, all filters, plugs, injectors, hoses are new. Fuel pressure test shows 65psi, so fuel pump is rock solid. THEN the guys son pulls the car off the rack and says "you know your gas pedal feels really ****ing stiff" and I said it was indeed funky, so he pops the hood and it turns out the asshat who did the tune up put the throttle cable back on the throttle body ON THE WRONG SIDE. He switched it, and the car ****ing hums. Tipped the kid $20 for being a champ, and now I have a $1000 truck that someone else put tons of money into trying to make it work right lol.

One fair concern however, the oil pan was pretty clean, but the pan(?) under the tranny had a good slick of oil on it, I cant really tell where its coming from, but the tranny shifts smooth as butter and isn't low on fluid at all. The truck is maybe a quart or 2 low on oil but im just gonna get a full oil change this weekend, probably to synthetic and see if it keeps eating oil. Is that normal on these engines with high miles?

 

That was lucky that fixing the throttle was that easy

 

Glad to hear the fix for the acceleration / throttle body was simple.

Sad to hear about the exhaust costs. But at least it is not both.

As for your comment about synthetic....what do you plan to gain by putting it in to look for leaks. 1. It seems like standard grade oil could help with that and be a little cheaper. 2. Do you plan to stay with synthetic in the future?

I have heard and read that if you put (full) synthetic oil in the vehicle and use it for a while, you have to continue to use it. Going back to conventional grade can cause issues. Take it for what it is worth, and do you own research if you want. Not saying it is gospel....just don't want someone coming in here with some smart @$$ off the cuff comment to chastise me otherwise.

In the end, glad to hear that another DD is on the road and not in the scrap yard.

Speaking of which, have you thought about going there to look for exhaust parts? Considering the age of your DD, it might be best to go this route. Granted it is a bit of work on your end to get them off a wreck.

 

When I make the switch to full synth it'll be permanent. I've used it in my rally cars and I get some serious life out of it. I had a a WRX go 12000 miles on an oil change with full synthetic and when it was drained out it was just black, no sludge, oil filter made it the whole way, turbo was rock solid the whole time. Ive HEARD that you actually should step your car up to, and down from synthetic oils. Like starting from conventional, run your next oil change for a few thousand miles with semi-synthetic, and then your 2nd change to full synth, and to step down just reverse the process. I have NO idea if there's any voracity to all that noise at all, but on high mileage cars (especially because I've heard these trucks have a big oil sludge issue) I run a few ounces of seafoam in the crankcase for a few hundred miles before a full oil change, it really helps get the gunk out.

As far as the exhaust, I dont really care about quality parts at this point, its a beater truck and I dont wanna put $2k into it for an exhaust. Ive found manifolds/headers on ebay for $75, the Ypipe for 50, and a flowmaster Cat for $75, an exhaust shop can custom make the cat back for cheap as hell. Really, it's all about the labor, the guy said they have to jack up the engine and rotate it to get the manifolds off, although idk if I believe all that

 

I don't really know much about rally cars, but I would never go that long on an oil change, especially with something that's being raced and at high revs all the time. I always change my oil between 3,000 and 3,500 miles. I think shrp went 6,500 or so, and had his oil tested to show that it was at the end of it's life. And switching oils frequently is usually thought to be bad practice, so I'd imagine constantly going between conventional and synthetic oils is even worse. Pick something and stick with it.

And whoever told you there are oil sludge issues are complete liars. There are no oil sludge issues with any of the engines in these trucks. Anyone who claims there is is either A) lying about it or B) going 12000 miles on an oil change and neglecting maintenance in general.

 

$2200 for an exhaust job seems way excessive. Does that include all the piping/parts needed? Thats almost what I paid for my truck, and over twice what you paid for yours. I feel like even buying all brand new performance parts and installing it yourself would be half that cost.

 

I was thinking the same thing.