Had bought the Hughes Kit and had a local dealer put it on for me. Think they charged me 4 labor hours.

 

Way high bro.

I have done this job, and as an intermediate shade tree tech, I can do it in less that 4 hours.

You got hooked up. I would believe the book time for the job would be somewhere from 5-7 hours. Also most places for warranty and liability reasons will refuse to install customer provided parts.

 

I'll do it for only $1350.00!

 

Sorry I had a local repair shop fix mine not a Dodge dealer. Didn't word it right.

 

Hi All: I have a much more serious issue now. I just picked up my van from the dodge dealership. The van is NOT accelerating, I have to depress the accelerator all way through, putting lots of pressure on it, to make the van move. At like 0-20 mph, its not bothering me, but anything above 20 mph, the engine is just not responding correctly. The van is struggling to catch up to 55mph.

I had absolutely NO problem with acceleration, despite all this oil consumption, and bringing van home after the intake mainfold gasket diagnosis, bum, this totally new problem surfaced.

Anyone has any ideas? what could be the issue for non-acceleration. I called the dealer, he said, we didn't do anything other than perform the TSB.

 

So just to be clear, it ran correctly after you picked it up, but now it doesn't?
Have you tried to scan for trouble codes?
Have you checked for any blown fuses?

 

No, the second I picked it up, stepped on the road, it appeared out of breadth, there is no power, it accelerates with a lot of pressure put on the accelerator. I called the dealership back right within couple of minutes of picking it up. There are no check-engine lights.

 

Then it sounds like they failed to connect something, connected it wrong, or screwed up the intake gasket installation. If it drove in there good, but didn't drive out of there good then they need to double check their work.

 

You may not get any satisfaction at a dealership including help with something they screwed up... your first mistake was taking it to them at all... again 20 year old vans/cars/whatever is NOT in their wheelhouse... anything older than 5 years old is too old for them.

find an independent mechanic that will say something like... "yes, I am familiar with those old Dodge's"...

It might just be something simple that a younger, dealership mechanic that was brought up on computer driven cars may have screwed up on.

If you get it running right, I use Restore (chemical treatment from auto shop) in all my older vehicles... to help seal up the engine...

 

All, I am so glad, my car is back as it used to be, what a ride, the dealership gave me.

First, the service manager opened the hood, checked and said, everything is hooked up properly, you have some other issue. I literally used alloro's words 'if it drove in your shop good, but didn't drive out good, then you need to double check your work'.

It took a lot of haggling and me watching their work, and my good luck, they admitted that some wire was hooked up wrong, and now it'll be fine. As soon I backed off the service bay, I could feel that tremendous power of the Dodge Ram I was so accustomed too ... it felt so good. It rides really really well, I am impressed, like a luxury car.

Now that I have my van back, I am tempted to try 'Restore' as rsdata suggests. I did some online research, it does seem to be work wonders. Do you think, I need to put it on regular basis, as my van does eat lot of oil, about 1 qt every 300 miles?, or should I just get it fixed at a shop using Hughes kit and be done with it? Offcourse, I'd like to save money, but if something must be taken care, then I will.