Hi everyone.

I have a 2005 Dodge Dakota SLT that I bought from a friend about a year ago with 136k miles on it. My wife has been driving it back and forth to college 3-4 times a week now (15 miles round trip) and about a week ago it started making a weird sound. I crawled all over the vehicle and the best I could guess would be it was coming from the area around the oil pan under the engine. It's a knocking like metal-on-metal sound and it is only apparent when the car is at idle or slowing down to idle/stop. When it is given even a little gas to increase RPM it goes away completely. Some things I read online were leading to possibly the transmission filter?

Engine oil level is normal.
Automatic transmission oil level is normal and pink.
No fault codes.
No gear shifting issues.
No power loss.

Just a weird loud sound....Any ideas?

Thanks,
Jamie