Well, after many years of good luck with used vehicles, I get burned on my new-to-me Dakota. I bought an 05 Dakota ST with only 34000 miles on it from a reputable local auto dealer. I checked out the carfax report and: no wrecks, 1 owner. Everything looked good. Drove the truck and noticed a slight rattle, but nothing major. After trading in my 05 Rubicon on this new truck, I got home and started to give her a thorough looking over. What I found has really pissed me off. Some a**hole had driven her through the weeds and wrapped a vine around the front driveshaft, tearing the front diff. pinion seal! OK, got that fixed. Was looking for where the rattle was coming from and noticed the front bumper fascia wasn't exactly straight. Most people probably wouldn't notice, but since I'm a slight perfectionist, I saw it. Seems someone had bumped the front end, bending the center support bracket under the bumper. $425 dollars later at a body shop, and now I find that the rattling noise is a busted lower ball joint in the driver side sway bar link!!! The only place to get the links is from Dodge and they are on back order for 7-10 days. The links, nuts, bushings, and washers ran $230, and that's with me changing them out. Hopefully after I get those parts in and replaced, my new lady will run good and I won't have any more problems out of her. When I get some more extra cash saved up, I plan on doing a transmission service and putting in the Royal Purple Max ATF with new filters, and replacing the rear diff. fluid. Wish me luck on getting my new truck in fighting shape.

 

Sounds like someone drove it 40mph in the woods b4 they got rid of it.

Why did you trade a rubicon on this? Needed the bed?

 

I feel your pain.. My 05 Dak was bought with 34000 miles at around 39000 the front lower ball joints went out, Of course out of warranty!! And can only get the parts from Dodge with a back order of 5-10 days. paid for that But did the work myself. I then gave the truck a good lookover and found mud caked tight on the top of the tranny and body??? Owner before me either took this for some serious beating off road or it was in a flood. Carfax turned up nothing. There is still mud up there as I cannot get it all out as its too compacted in there. Tie rod end went out also and of course back ordered but its in and running fine now.Well maybe not? I have an exhaust leak on the passanger manifold gasket now and picked up the gaskets yesterday 11 dollars and will work on them tomorrow night??? Hope i dont break a bolt taking them out or I will really be seeing stars. I love the truck and traded a 06 quad cab Ram in for it for gas reasons so Hope nothing else goes wrong. And by the way i bought it at the largest dodge dealer here in Pittsburgh so reputation isnt always the key to finding a good truck. Things Just happen I guess or i have a black cloud over my head.

 

ha! i'm not the only one who is cursed!! So here's my story: When I turned 16 I bought a jeep....JUNK!!!! Had nothing but trouble with that POS, however I loved it...I may be a sucker for punishment. So after taking a huge hit on it, bought a mid 90's truck from again a well recognized local dealer. First day I owned it the frost plug came out and of course I dumped fluid everywhere....here's an abbreviated list of parts that went into the truck before I finally bought my dak. 2 rads (1 was my fault), new front end, 4 tranny's (long story, in short it was combo of a lemon truck and poor rebuilds), transfer case, driveshaft, and of course after that I couldnt' just sell the truck had way too much into it, but when the crank threw a bearing I finally decided enough was enough. And of course the next tale in this saga was the dumb b*tch hitting my truck doing donuts in a crowded parking lot...I'm not sure what we did to **** of the truck gods, but they definately hate me!

 

Let me try to save you some grief - considering the sway bar link is broken, be sure to buy two link kits from Dodge - should be about $60 a piece - and have those ALONG with four new Rancho shocks installed by a local shop.
If you just replace the links and not the shocks I firmly believe that the crappy stock shocks will only lead to the definite demise of the stablizer links. For now you just have a rattle and some noise in the front end, so deal with it until you can do the entire job.
It wont hurt the truck, it's just annoying.
Unfortunately everything you read about on this site pretty much happens to all of our trucks, especially the '05s, and one day soon enough you will have to get the work done.
My next issue to check into is the infamous exhaust tap that is only now starting to rear it's ugly head with 42k on it...

 

Well, I got rid of the Rubicon because I needed something with 4-doors for an expanding family and I was sooo tired of not having a truck. The Rubicon was nice, if you like changing gears with the 6-speed transmission every two seconds (it seemed like). If you're going off-road, I firmly believe it's the best made vehicle you can get without a custom build. That Jeep would climb up a tree if you needed to. I love the truck, just want it to work like it should. Guess this is what you get for saving $5000 or so and not buying a Toyota or Nissan!!

 

The sway bar link should not have cost you $230. I had to replace one while doing some front suspension work myself and I got the part from the dealer for $60, used the existing mounting hardware.

 

It cost $230 because I bought the links for both sides, and all new bushings and hardware. I probably didn't need all that stuff new, but the rubber bushings had started to crack and I figured might as well change the washers and nuts while I was doing the job. I've learned from experience that it's always better to just replace everything while you're in there the first time.
I also got my truck back from the body shop yesterday. Got the front in repaired, but I definitely should have done it myself!! They replaced the fascia support and bumper support. I didn't like the way they lined up the plastic front bumper fascia, so when I got it home I took it all apart again and realigned all the components. I'm much more pleased with how it looks now. It's not perfect, but I highly doubt anyone but me would be able to notice. They body shop guys couldn't tell until I pointed it out. I'll post pics soon.

 

BTW, the links cost $71.69 each (plus tax) and have to wait 7-10 days to get them.

 

hmm looks like they raised the price on more than just bumpers then...