I now have 7500K on my 4.7 cc auto and have had no forebodings about the
engine. Am I worried about massive engie top-end failure? No. Never
even heard about this 'problem' until now. But thats why I got the 5 year
warranty. I knew it was an engine barely out of beta and I didn't know a lot
about it's long term issues.
Remember, your relative doesn't work for Chevy or Ford or Toyota so he
doesn't see all their internal failure statistics etc. as easily as he sees
Chrysler etc. But then again, I would be very surprised if the problem rate
on a new design were the same as on an older more massaged design. Probably
something to what the guy says, but maybe not as big a problem now as it was
at one time etc if it were a significant problem at all. But then again, I
bought the thing so I am biased to loving every tire thrashing moment while
driving it! Muuuhaaaahaaahahahahahaa!
As far as service issues, nothing major so far but I am taking it in next
week to the dealer for a couple of items:
(1) Belt squeal on upshift during hard acceloration.
(2) Possible warped rotor (flutter in brake pedal during decel).
(3) A/C controls/vents seem a little spurious in how they decide to work
sometimes (vacuum leak?)
(4) 'rail dust' on paint (this was a we-owe item when I bought, just now
getting them to deal with it)
(5) Investigate any things that might be causing my poor mileage (i.e.
dragging brakes, engine sensor failure, tranny, wheel alignment, gum under
gas pedal etc.)
(6) Electric fan ONLY comes on with A/C, have never had it come on when A/C
is off even when engine temp passed halfway mark (I was trying to get the
dang fan to kick in! anyone else with similar elect. fan problem?)
(7) Power steering fluid reservior oozes from cap area, slowly, but enough
to make a mess of the outside of reservior. Strange, lid looks like it seals
fine, but apparently not.
And I can honestly state that I have *zero* 'sludge-pudding' in my oil fill
spout. But I live in AZ and drive 20+ minutes to work.
Bonus Thought:
Idea for Dakota advert -- Picture sorry guy walking down deserted highway
with non-Dak truck, hood open, in the distance behind him.
As a Dak pulls up to to offer the guy a ride the music kicks in with lyrics
twisted from 50's song 'Yakity-Yak..Don't Talk Back' (Big Bopper? can't
remember). Except here the the chorus goes "Dakity-Dak...Don't Walk Back!".
I'll leave it to others to fill in the rest of the lyrics. Ok, I'm going
now.
fdedip@whale-mail.com wrote:
> OK, so somehow I am become the Dakota guru. This lady was asking
> questions about the Quad Cab on the pickuptruck.com forum, and I
> answered, and she started emailing me personally for more advice.
> Which is fine, except that I think its really funny for me to be the
> expert, but.... getting to the point.
> I recommended the 4.7 engine, and she was all good to go, ready to
> buy a Dakota. Now she just sent me this message:
>
> "I got a earful of the weekend about the 4.7 engine. As you probably
> know it came from the Jeep line last year. My
> Chrysler,Plymouth,
> Dodge repairman in the family advised me that they have received
> several notices from the factory about this engine failing in
> several
> ways including lifters and cylinder replacements in new trucks!"
>
> Anybody else hear of anything like that?
> Flip
>
> http://www.care2.com - Homebase for people who care about the Environment!
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Fri Jun 20 2003 - 11:50:54 EDT