I have a 1999 Dodge Ram 2500 with the 360 gas engine. This truck has set, unused and unstarted for about two months. I went to start it yesterday and the battery was dead so I had to boost it off. The truck wouldn't start unless I laid in to the gas, and will die unless I keep giving it gas. After doing several times the truck will finally idle, but if I turn it off and try to start it back, it does the same thing. Any ideas on what could be wrong?

Thanks in advance for any help you can provide.

 

Check the battery. Seems that a weak battery can cause all sorts of driveability issues.

 

I'll put the battery on charge as soon as i get home from work today. I didn't realize a weak battery would cause this type of issue once the truck has been started.

 

+1 My truck does this whenever the battery gets run down very low. Dang thing won't even idle without a little foot on the pedal. Once the battery gets charged up a little it idles fine.

 

Same thing happened to me after we finished up the plenum repair, truck wouldn't run worth squat, we actually forgot a connection on the back of the kegger and the negative battery cable was loose, getting a poor connection...

 

yes low battery power will cause all kinds of issues...you need enough juice for the ECM to run...no power to ECM = no fuel injection = no run.

so when you get to 2000rpm the alternator is finally putting out enough juice to both charge the battery AND compensate for lack of power..but below that, its lucky to be charging the dead battery while trying to run everything.

 

Dido my truck had the same problem. I ended up having a dead cell in the battery, replaced the battery and it was fine.