I'm new at all this not to mention a female, LOL! I have a 99 Dodge Ram V8. I just had a new Oil Pump, Water Pump, Radiator, and a all new by pass hose, upper radiator hose and while he had the fan and all that taking apart he went ahead and replaced my cerpatain belt. All of this was within a couple weeks apart and less then two weeks ago...now I'm having something weird happen? I never use my Cruise Control...well its almost like a feeling like my cruise control is on even though its not? I can be driving say leaving a red light already changed maybe two or three gears and then acts like it wants to cut back, or I can be going slow over a speed bump and go to press on the gas and it acts like it wants to cut back or something? I've had transmission's go out on me in two of my Ford Explorers that I had years ago...so I did put my truck in Park and leave my foot on the brake and go to drive, to reverse, to drive to reverse again to see if my truck would jump as going into gears..but its not, Transmission fluid is ok...however I've never had it flushed? Is this something I should do? Could it be my cruise control some how stuck? I've pushed it on and set it and then turned it off to see if it would change but it don't? It just started doing this a couple days ago. Please help....could it be a sensor or something? Any suggestions or ideas?

 

Welcome to the site. I will move this trhread to the second generation Ram section,
FF

 

i doubt that the cruise control is stuck on. it has a number of safety features built in which require a lot of conditions to be true before it will kick in.

what does "cut back" mean ?

and did it do that before you had all that work done ?

and what led you to have all that work done ?

 

cutback refers to when lightly stepping on the gas RPM decrease a very little bit.

 

1st of all I had the radiator replaced in March of 09...well had a lifetime warranty, Thank God because it started leaking...so that's what lead to the replacement of the radiator, it was one of those things that my truck never ran hot because unlike a lot of females I do check my fluids and I was adding coolant at least once a week, for about a month then I got tired of it and started getting under my truck to see where it was leaking and I found the leak on my radiator. So while he replaced that I went on and had him put all new hoses, etc. The oil pump came about because my truck started doing this thing were the oil pressure would go from the half way mark to 0 quickly and I right away took it to the shop and had that problem fixed. And then the water pump my truck started doing some kind of loud noise took it to the shop and that was my problem so they fixed that....My radiator was the most recent thing I had done and NO it was never doing any of this until now which its been about 3wks ago since he put the radiator in.

as far as cutting back the RPM's do decrease a little but then once I give it gas then its like it'll shift into were it needs to be. The weird thing is that I can be going real about 20mph or I can be going 50mph and it will do it? But when watching the RPM's its like it shifts down and then back up? Its weird and my truck has never done this and I've had it now for 7yrs. and this year I'm just now running into problems? It's got 145,000 miles on it. I did go out this morning to check my hoses and my air filter...everything was fine other than I did notice on my air filter box that holds it there was a little opening where it wasn't shut all the way? I don't know if that could make a difference or not?

 

look down the throttle body for oil , with 145xxx im sure the plenum is blown..
its the gasket between the block and and the intake maniold it lets oil in and really kills the truck

 

a vacuum leak can cause hesitation when you accelerate a little. sort of like a bog down or a flat spot. but then when you press the gas pedal harder, the increased vacuum will sort of overcome it and it'll take off.

if it just started doing that after the last repair, take it back to the shop and describe the problem and get them to drive/ride with you so you can demonstrate it. a vac line might be left off, or broken.

does it seem like you have to press the gas more than you should to make it accelerate ? and does it seem like its unresponsive.

air box leak is above the throttle body opening, so it won't cause this problem, but it does indicate sloppy work.

if you want to work on it yourself, feel and trace every vacuum hose that comes off the intake manifold. there will be 2 or 3 on each side, some big, some small. look for one to be off, or loose, or split, or something. to prove whether it is or isn't a vac leak, you can cap off each port and do a short test drive to see if the condition changes. be careful that w/o the brake booster your brakes will not be powered.

another possibility is the throttle position sensor on drivers side of throttle body. make sure its plugged in.

last question - do you have a check engine light. if so go by an autozone type parts store and have them read the codes. write down the numbers, not their interpretation. they're usually wrong and just want to sell you something expensive.