I have a 93 Dakota, and everytime I start it it sputters and dies unless I hold the throttle. I replaced the throttle positioning sensor, and it has good gas in it. Any help is appreciated

 

Which engine? Have you cleaned the throttle body?

 

I'm often told I need help. That's not your issues though, is it?

I bought a '93 Dakota new. It was a great truck and I only had one repair besides basic maintenance. That was the steering rack at 120,000 miles. It did have a similar issue a few times. I let the dealer deal with it the first time as it was under warranty. It did it again a couple of times while I had the truck. Like HeyYou said, clean your throttle plate. EGR gasses build up and make gooky stuff (<--------Fancy technical term) in the plate. Get some throttle body cleaner. DO NOT use Carburetor cleaner unless it says it is safe for fuel injection systems. Take the air cleaner off and open the plate by hand. Spray some cleaner in there and rub it around with a :PAPER towel. Don't use cloth. Paper won't jam a valve and if some gets down there, it'll burn up. You'll see some nasty stuff on the towel. Once it comes out clean, reassemble everything and start the truck. It WILL be hard to start and when it does, all the crap you cleaned off will need to burn off. Once it smooths out, you should be good to go.


If it still runs bad, do the key dance and see if there are any codes in the computer. I'll bet it fixes it though.

 

Key dance on a 93'?

 

Yep, up through 1995 that's how Chrysler products read the code. 1996 and later, it will still work but you can also use an OBD II reader. On my '96, I did the dance and it popped up 12 and 55. You'll almost always get those. When I plugged a reader in, no codes. There are a few years, on diesels, when the dance doesn't work due to programming issues. When I had my 2001 2500, it would read the codes out on the digital odometer. My '96 doesn't have that.