Hello all! Brand new to this forum and looking for some advice. I just purchased a 2003 Dakota Quad cab 4wd for a VERY reasonable price. I was very happy for the first 100km, then found out why I got it so cheap. The engine intermittantly will die out, usually after turning a corner, although not always. The engine continues to run, but when I put my foot into it to accelerate, it just bogs and slows down. I found that if I put my foot all the way to the floor, it will take off again, but then does it again next time I lay off the gas. Sometimes I can go for a long drive and it will run fine, other times this happens several times on a short trip. I'm new to fuel injection, but am thinking maybe TPS?? Anybody had a similar fault? Any advice I can get would be great. Thanks for reading!!

 

check the pressure in your fuel pump by buying fuel pressure test kit at autozone and hook it up to the fuel rail.

 

Also check the TPS output voltage. With the engine off, key in on/run position the center wire on the TPS connector plug should have about half a volt on it with the throttle closed. Slowly open the throttle by hand, the voltage should slowly and steadily increase as you open the throttle plate to about 4.5 to 4.8 volts with the throttle wide open. An intermittent TPS problem can be hard to diagnose but it sounds like your TPS may be bad. You could just replace it anyway and see what happens, they are not very expensive.

Jimmy

 

x2 on whats said above, fuel pump could be part of the problem, how old is the truck? because i know when i buy trucks i do a full tune up even though this has nothing to do with your problem i think it would be a good idea to go ahead and do plug, plug wires, distributor cap and rotor. jmo

 

Thanks everyone for your advice.

Thunder; I'll check the fuel pressure this weekend, but this problem is intermittant, so I'm thinking if I don't catch it when the problem is occurring, the pressure would likely be normal??

Silver; I looked on partsource, the TPS only runs about $50, and looks to be very easy to replace, so I think I'll order one.

Blaze; The truck is a 2003, but has 261000Km on it. The guy I bought it from did mention it was due for a tuneup, so maybe I'll see what local garages have tuneup specials on.

If anyone else has had this specific problem on a 3.9l V6 and was able to isolate the cause, please post. I know if I continue to throw money at it I'll eventually replace the part causing the issues, but would like to eliminate the problem as economically as possible.

Once again, Thanks!!

 

check your grounds on battery, block and what not i had a truck that would just shut off when ever it wanted mostly around corners stops and what not found out the ground to the engine block had come loose

 

i had a problem like yours. turned out to be a bad/rotten battery terminal, so i replaced both with oversized knoby looking ones and they stay cleaner and the engine never cut out again. i had them laying around but they should be cheap new.

 

Im going with tps. check local parts store I remember seeing a post by someone(maybe a week ago) they said they got a tps from autozone for 33.00. Normally when a fuel pump is going its fine under small acceleration but under full throttle it cuts out. My fuel pump was fine cold but after it warmed up over a 10 min period it would kill the engine then wouldnt restart till it cooled. I've also had a bad battery terminal that would cause the truck not to idle but after you held the throttle at a steady rpm it would be fine. It did also cause a lag in throttle response