I've been having some ignition/electrical issues and I'm hoping someone here can help me out. I have an 02 Dakota with a 4.7L with 92K miles, bought it about a year ago and it ran great until a couple months ago. With no warning it just wouldn't start, had it towed to a mechanic that came highly recommended who ran the codes and said it had a misfire in cylinders 2 & 4 and a bad cam/crank sensor. He replaced coils and sensor and it seemed to run good until a couple weeks ago when a check eng. light came on, stopped and had codes read and it said misfire #2 cyl, but it still ran good. I bought a coil and replaced all plugs and after that it started running rough at freeway speeds but runs fine at slower speeds. Today my wife took it back to the mechanic who read codes and again it said misfire #2 cyl and he replaced that coil for free and sent her on her way. When I got home from work I took it for a spin on the freeway and its still running like crap, misfiring. Any ideas other then finding a new mechanic? Thanks in advance.

 

I will move this to the 2nd generation Dakota sub-forum.

 

What did the plugs that you pulled look like? You can tell a lot from their pattern.

What plugs are your running?

I'm thinking bad/dirty fuel injector.

 

My guess would be injector also. They are about $30 on rock auto.

 

Plugs didn't look bad, replaced with Autolite 5224 if I remember the # correctly.

 

5224 is the correct part number.

You could try the OEM plug. It came stock with the Champion RC12MCC4 and see what happens.

 

Got my truck back from the shop last night, seems to run good now just like it did a couple months ago when I got back from the shop the 1st time. Mechanic replaced the same cam & crank sensors he put in the 1st time around and when asked why those sensors took a dump on me after just a couple months, all he could tell me is "their electrical components and sometimes they just fail", which doesn't leave me feeling very confident that this won't happen again in another couple months. Done with this mechanic.

 

Angus, glad to hear your truck is back and running well.

Unfortunately, what you had happen is becoming all to common. There are a lot of poor quality parts being sold nowadays. Even some of the name brands are cheaping out.

Sometimes, it does make sense to use an OEM part.