I have a 2001 dakota that runs fine most of the time except every now and then the engine will start to hesitate for about a minute and backfire when it does. Then it runs fine for awhile before it does it again. It doesnt really do it that often but often enough to aggravate me. Does anyone know or had this problem before. I already checked the sparks and all filters that im aware of.

 

What flavor of engine?

 

I have a 3.9 V6

 

MAP sensor is my first guess. Does this only happen at idle, going down the road, or just any random conditions?

 

It happens randomly

 

Don't forget O2 sensors going bad. My R/T drove poorly off and on bucking and popping in the lower rpm ranges but we have seen others run great on the bottom and poor in the upper ranges. A new set of O2 sensors and it was like a new truck.

 

Ignition crank sensor might also be teh culprit too. Mines would randomly act up and not allow it to go over 45. Replaced that and it runs fine now other than the freaking cat blew a hole in it and I just dont have the time to get it fixed right now.

 

My suggestion before replacing all of these aforementioned parts is to have a diagnostics test done to it.