My 2006 Dodge Dakota V6 is having some problems. When I am at a stop light and go to accelerate it has some hesitation and moves very slowly. The Rpms slighty jump up but only to like 2500 rpm. This only happens every once and a While. I thought my Transmission fluid was low and I checked it and it was fine I checked my engine oil still clean and I changed my air filter and it is still having problems. Anything I should do? It has 130000 miles on it. I have always changed my oil with full synthetic and now High mileage full synthetic. I have not had any problems like this until now.

 

Got a check engine light or funny noises?

 

sounds like time for a plug change, I run the autolite 3922 plug, for the 4.7, but your truck would do fine with the autolite 3923 plug

 

my truck just started doing this when i was coming back from the bush. At highway speeds it would sometimes seem to jump, yet when it does that nothing seems to change on my dash, the RPM doesn't change, speed is not affected, just feels like there's a thump. When i got back in town, it was sluggish just like the OP stated. No check engine light, all fluids ok.

At one point on the highway, when going down hill, the tranny downshifted and the engine RPM went super high (4.5 to 5 K) where the normal RPM for that speed is about 1.8K. It's never done that before and i drive this highway often throughout the summer to the camp and back. It's almost like it went from 4th to 2nd.

I'm thinking plugs also at this point, i'll pull one and check tomorrow. They are E3 plugs that i put in a little over 2 years ago. only about 20K km put on those plugs though. They should last a whole lot longer.

What plug do you all recommend for a 3.7? Should i bother with E3's warranty? It has seemed to take more fuel then normal recently.

 

Kinda long, TLDR at the end.

OK, so this morning my truck threw a code. Misfire on cylinder 5. So, i think "Oh no, not again" as i was having misfire issues in October, but this would explain what was happening to me. So, once i finished what i had to do, i went to Canadian Tire to buy 2 new coils (one was replaced in October) and new plugs. I went with the Champion Platinum Power plugs, not anything crazy like the E3's or some crazy double platinum or ones with strange ground straps like the bosch platinum +4. Oh, and no coils were available. Special order only and $105 each. I know i can get cheaper elsewhere, so i decide to wait to get the coils but swap the plugs tonight to see what happens.

During the swap, of course i took off the air snorkel, and noticed that the throttle body looked dirty. I had a can of SeaFoam and i used it to clean the outside of the TB. I then thought "if the outside is that dirty, the inside might be also". so i took it off and yup, crazy dirty. So i cleaned what i could from the outside, then with the help of an extra set of legs, i sprayed the SeaFoam in as per the instructions and OMG the smoke coming out of the exhaust was CRAZY. At first it was a thick blue smoke, then it went to grey before finally dropping off a few minutes later.

Went for a drive, and OMG, the truck feels so much better. Better then it was when it was new to me. It has a throaty burble at idle again, i havn't heard that in a while, and i couldn't figure out why.

All this and my truck just turned over 50K km. When i parked in my driveway to swap everything, it was at 49,999 km. Too young to need this much work, but i think the E3 plugs were causing my issues.

TLDR...

OP, change your plugs and possibly also do an application of SeaFoam through the intake like i did above.

 

Whens the last time you did a tune up?

 

Sounds like a possible cam position sensor. They won't throw a code until they are really bad. I'm on my 3rd one. First one never threw a code, second one was really bad when it finally coded.