nice truck, how do you like the new dodge blk? on the other note. i have heard bad thing about the new v-8 in the dakotas and rams. dodge says an increase in mpg gallon but people are complaing at 14-15 mpg. still the same old 4.7. lets us know what you are getting

 

Mine is a 2007 and I just got back from a turkey hunting trip to Md (over 300 miles round trip) and averaged around 21 pmg, not bad for the 4.7

BTW, congrats on the new truck, good luck with it!

 

I have not read any bad things about the new 4.7, but I can tell you I spent 4 hours on the road in my 08' CC 4x4 V8 yesterday, and I have been watching the milage pretty close, in town I am getting around 16mpg checked by it hand when I filled up before yesterdays trip. I got 19mpg avg on my trip. I was also on some long stretches of 2 lane highway where speeds were in the 60-65 range, so I reset the computer to see what I was getting at lower highway speeds, at between 60-65 I was getting over 20.

The trip was about half interstate at speeds between 75-80mph and the other half was those 2 lanes highways at 60-70. This was all done on a motor with less than 1000 miles on it.

I just traded an 08 quad cab Hemi Ram 4x4 for this Dakota, and no matter what the window stickers claim (something like 1-2 mpg difference) the dakota at times is getting over 5 mpg better from what I have seen so far. The Ram had 6k on it when I traded it, it had picked up a mpg or 2 after the first 1000 miles Ram, the Dak may verry well do the same.

As far as perforamnce the V8 Dak seems to have about the same perforamnce as the Hemi Ram, plenty of power for passing and getting up to speed to merge into city trafic, has been no problem. I think it will handel small trailers no problem at all.

 

I think the problem as far as mpg goes on the 08 4.7s is either that people are driving them like they stole them and expecting good mileage, or that they just need to get broken in. Isn't it like 4500-5000 miles the end of the break-in period? You also gotta figure in city driving, if they are doing at least a 1/4 of their driving city miles then that probably hurts their mileage also.

 

Question for the 2008 Dakota 4.7L owners...

Is it true that the New 4.7L engine now has 16 spark plugs?.....
8 plugs in the upper bank, gapped at one size and has 8 plugs in the lower bank
gapped a difference size?

This is out of the 2008 Dakota Owners manual...

Vehicles built with the 4.7L engine are

equipped with sixteen spark plugs, one set is located on

the top of the engine under the coils and the second set is

located on the side of the engine.

The spark plugs located under the coils are a standard

plug and must be change every 30,000 miles (50 000 km)

The spark plugs located on the side of the engine are a

premium plug and must be changed every 102,000 miles

 

Nice trucks guys, although you should have gotten Silver. And BTW welcome to the site!

 

It is true the new V8 int eh 08 dakotas do have 16 spark plugs, I guess this was one of the ways they were able to increase HP on the engine.

http://www.allpar.com/mopar/47.html

also, as someone else had asked.. how is the MPG so far?

 

Thanks everyone for the nice comments... as for the mpg .....not enough
miles yet, only 309 miles... just filled up again, but was 16.6 so far... city !!!!
will get better, I hope, after it get more miles on it.....

 

typically, the only reason they double up on spark plugs is for emisson reasons. by adding a plug, the a/f mix in the cylinder will have a more complete burn, thus fewer HC emissions. A byproduct of this is more power (most likely). the 5.7 hemis have 16 plugs as well, it was the only way to get it to have low enough emissions.