Sounds like even 2 grand was too much for that poor ole mistreated and neglected Dakota. You definitely made the right decision passing it by. Maybe its owner or someone who will buy it and fix it and take care of it will get it back in shape. Keep on looking, there's a lot of good used Dakota's out there. I hate to see somebody take a good truck and run it into the ground and not take good care of it..

Jimmy

 

Yeah that definitely sounded like a beat pos that wasn't taken care of VERY smart choice to skip on that one there are ones in great shape for very good prices so just be patient. I believe the Dakotas that came with the AWD are the ones that weren't R/T's but came with the 5.9 which would get you 10-14 mpg best probably no better than 16-17 hw.

 

Thanks for the advice. Good to know on the awd ones...that is def. not something I want!

Your truck looks really nice.. My ideal color choice is charcoal in the setup you have (of course i have to get an auto though). My next favorite color is the green...followed by white then black. Silver and red are on the bottom of the list but I would truly take any color if its in great shape and is a good deal.

Also.. I see you have the aerochamber pipes...is there a place on the forums somewhere with an exhaust thread (video clips or sound links?). I will probably immediately get tires (if needed) and an exhaust, along with an overall tune up.

The hunt continues!

 

yeah but it would probably be easier for you to just go on youtube and search hooker dakota and my truck will pop up 3 or 4 times. two by itself one with me racing my friends f-150 and one with a red dak in it let me know if you can't find them.

 

yeah that sucks that this one had so many problems. i wouldn't even give him 2K for it, just wait until you can find something that will work better for you...

 

I have a 2001 Dodge Dakota Sport 4 door 2wd 3.9v6 automatic with clutch fan delete I get 18.6 in the city and 21.4 on the hwy at least thats what the little computer on the roof says i don't know how accurate it is or how its figures that out i drive about 100 miles a day 25% city 75% hwy miles I live in central florida

 

I commute in heavy ATL traffic and avg anywhere 14-16 mpg. Never drove it on a long hwy trip (got a Honda for that) except for towing cars, so I couldn't give you a reliable highway mileage.

It's common knowledge that it makes no sense to get a smaller engine, as the mileage ends up being the same. Even the 4 cyl got horrible mileage. One suggestion I would give you is to buy a truck with OEM tow package. The heavy duty cooling goes a long way in making the engine and tranny last long. The tranny itself has a large dedicated cooler.

 

this is what i am currently getting for city miles



city mpg




over all miles traveled


my truck has 205000 miles on it I used to get 17.3 city and now after the clutch fan delete I get 18.8 I am going to do a tune up with high performance coil, wires, cap, rotor and plugs. I will post more pics of mpg if it changes any after that ... at some point I would like to get the k&n air intake and v8 tb and jbl headers

 

I have a buddy that has a 98 dakota 2wd ext cab with the 4.7 auto the best he can get is 12.5 city and 16 hwy

 

The console mpg is not reliable. The only true method I know is zeroing the trip odo at fill up and doing the math on the next fill up.