Hi, my 2007 v6 Dakota has always hesitated a little on hills. Today it got a lot worse. Any hill no matter how small when I try and accelerate from 1500 Rpms the truck just shakes and sputters and eventually the check engine light flashes. As soon as I slow down the light goes off and if I slam on the gas i can speed up the hill with no problem but I cannot slowly accelerate or maintain speed on hills. Any idea what could cause this. The truck is still fine for driving around in town but any faster is a problem.

If it makes any difference I just installed a new o2 sensor yesterday.

 

How many miles? 2 or 4 wheel drive? Auto or manual? When was the last tune up? The more information you can provide helps anyone wanting to offer assistance.

 

Any resolution to your problem? I'm having a similar problem on my 4wd 08 Dakota and I was wondering if you had a fix.

 

Same questions for you as well. Obviously the OP has decided not to follow up.

 

I have a 2008 dakota. 4wd with about 58,000 miles 4.7l V8 automatic transmission. I have been chasing this issue for months and have not gotten anywhere. The problem is so Intermediate that it's very hard to troubleshoot. I did a tune up a month ago, it includes wires, plugs and coils. I replaced the air filter took off and cleaned the throttle body. I did a vaccum check, all results are normal and within range. Did a fuel pressure check came back good. Changed the two upstream O2 sensors and also the map sensor no change at all . Took it to a shop they hook it up to the computer ran all sorts of test never threw a code or came back with anything. They even reflashed it and still got the intermitante lack of power. They suspected a fuel system problem but found nothing. I filled up a few times with high octane and I also used fuel injector cleaner and seafoam. But the power loss still occurs. I'm at a point where i don't know what else I can do to trouble shoot it. So I have just been driving it with the issue waiting for a complete failure. So that's why I am doing a follow up. To see is anyone had any solution that I could try.

 

I apologize I should have also explained what my loss of power was. When accelerating up a hill or onto the highway from a stop the truck would feel as if it was dragging a load or being held back from fulling getting up to speed even with your pedal down to the floor. It doesn't happen all the time but when it does it's very noticeable. It does this around 3 and 4 gear between 25-35 mphand at about 1500 to 2000 RPMs. When it does it though you start to see the speed and rpm start to slightly drop when it peaks out. So I thought it was transmission related at first not downshifting. So when it happened I manualy shifted into 2nd still no change. The weird thing about this problem is the power loss delay only occur for like 30seconds to a minuet then the RPMs shoot up and the truck takes off and it has full power again.

 

I'd be checking the exhaust on that, Aglojoe - my 1988 did that when the cat plugged up.

 

Hi, sorry I haven't been keeping up on this I just started a new job and between that and working on the truck I've been a little busy. I see some other people are interested in what the problem was so here is what I have found so far.

Shortly after i put this up the check engine light came on permanently as a misfire.
I checked the spark plugs(which looked great a week earlier when I did the tune up before putting the truck on the road again) and they were very bad looking.
I took my motorcycle to work a few days so I could work on the truck and noticed the battery was drained when I tried to use it next and started testing for parasitic drain.
After going over the truck with a multimeter when I found time I started suspecting a bad ground to the engine.
I added two additional grounds Saturday along with some new spark plugs and it seems to be running great now and the drain on the battery is much better when the truck is off.
I'm not sure if the bad ground had anything to do with the spark plugs wearing so quickly so I'm still keeping an eye on things but I'm hoping that was the problem.