Would like to hear from everyone who may be experiencing abnormal tire wear and
otherproblems associated with the front suspension of the late series (97+) 2WD
Dakota. I have one of the very first 1997 2WD Dakotas built, and it eats tires
like they are make of butter. There are occasional sounds which can be heard
emanating from the front end which are disconcerting. Sometimes the sound makes
me think the coil springs are shifting, sometimes it sounds like loose (or worn
out) wheel bearings, and other times maybe something from the brakes. Neither is
the case, although the first report to the selling dealer led to their reinstalling
the coil springs with new pads - didn't help. The vehicle has had 4 front end
alignments (in 12,000 miles) to no avail - it is always within specs. Two
different dealers and one Firestone store have worked on it. The stock tires were
worn out at 5,000 miles (outer shoulder worn to the steel belt). I have called
several Dodge dealers around San Jose and Dallas about this, and only one seems to
have heard of or seen the problem, and all assure me there are no recalls or
maintenance bulletins on the front end.
A small town dealer near Dallas says that setting the toe-in to zero solves the
problem. The jury’s still out. However, now that the toe is set to zero, the
bump-steer is bad. I have been reading about the worn out upper arm assemblies
some have experienced, but that hasn’t happened to me - at least not yet (12K miles).
The computer printout provided by a Firestone dealer showed some rather severe
negative camber settings (which are non-adjustable). I just remembered that the
service writer at the selling dealer told me (in October 1996) that Dodge designed
the new Dakota front suspension so it could be easily lowered 2" using a factory
kit - that if I planned so to do, to wait for the factory parts (probably will be 3
or 4 years before they are ready though if the MOPAR Performance parts schedule is
any indication). Might explain the radical built-in camber setting.
An article in the latest edition of Truckin' magazine (p38 April 98) says that
Western Chassis is building a new upper arm for this truck - and reportedly the reason
is to aid in properly lowering the truck PLUS to "allow the truck to be aligned
decently with no bump-steer". Will try to call them next week to get the technical
scoop.
There is the impression that a number of folk are aware of this problem. I would
like to hear if the problem that plagues my truck has been solved, and how. Lowering
the truck has always been the plan, and doing it right is the only way to go, so I
have high hopes for the Western Digital product. Until they are available, it would
be great to save the tires!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(__) ,---------. NOTE: The preceding message was sent via Jaek and
(oo) | :\/: _ _ \ Jon's WWW mail cow gateway. That is to say, the
/-------\/_/ : :: :: : ) person who sent this message could in fact be an
/ | MAIL|| \_ ' '`-'`-'/ anonymous prankster. Even though this message was
* ||"" || \__________/ mailed to you from the cs.fredonia.edu domain, it
^^ ^^ could have been generated by anyone in the world.
Please keep this in mind. Thank you! --Jaek (smit2204) and -Jon- (stei0302)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Fri Jun 20 2003 - 12:08:13 EDT