Well, I no longer own a Dodge Dakota. I will have some Dakota
bits for sale soon, factory alloys, bedrug, intake pipe.
What a day. Let me recap previous events of this week.
Driveline vibration surfaced middle of last week. I put it up on
stands, and determined it was something bad. I took it to the
dealer, who replaced the driveshaft u-joints (wanted to just do
the rear, I had them do both). They declared it fixed. I drove
it, same vibration. I took one of the service guys out for a
drive, yep, he sees the problem. They put it back on the rack.
Fiddle, fiddle, fiddle. Declare that the vibration is coming
from the tires, perhaps one of them slipped a belt.
They declare it is 100% sound. I trailer horses, 500 miles, the
next day. The day after, I take it in to the tire shop, have
them rebalance, check, and rotate tires. Vibration still there.
Next day, I decide to take it to the dealer, and get a trade-in
value, as I know something is not right. Exactly 4 miles up the
road on the way to the dealer, the transfer case GRENADES,
dropping the driveshaft, etc etc etc, at 75 MPH.
Fun ride, that was. Wait 75 minutes for a tow truck to come from
a tow shop ONLY 10 MILES AWAY. Get towed the 3 miles to the
dealer.
Spend the rest of the day searching inventory in the surrounding
250 miles. Not a single manual trans truck. Consider a
slushomatic, drive a slushomatic. Agonize, and finally buy a
2003 3/4 ton 5 speed with 17k miles off the lot, after they knock
off 1400 and agree to put in keyless entry free.
Got 7k trade in on a 2000 loaded dodge dakota with 62k miles.
KBB shows trade-in at 9000, and they took off the cost of the new transfer
case etc. I feel like I've been ass-raped, but at least I have a truck.
Missed towing the horse tonight, but I'm ok for Sunday
and next week.
End result, I'm happy I guess, payment is the same, just bumped
it out another 4 years :-P, for a much more capable truck. I'm still not
sure how pissed I should be at the dealer.
/Curt
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu Jul 01 2004 - 00:15:17 EDT