1998 Dodge Dakota Equipment Problems

“1998 Dodge Dakota, upper arm ball joint defect. A story on cbs news last night has prompted me to submit this complaint. September 2000, noise on the right front side of truck prompted me to stop at a Dodge dealer to check it out, found the right upper arm ball joint was so bad that the service manager said I could have lost the wheel on the highway at the speed limit causing potentially serious accident. The arm was replaced under warranty (34853 miles). …”

“I have had numerous problems with my 1998 Dodge Dakota. I purchased it brand new. 2 months after 8/98 purchase date, the transmission went out. The brakes have had to be replaced several times, the map sensor went out while driving down the highway causing the vehicle to shut down. I recently had to replace the lower ball joints. The seat belts come off entirely too easy. All of this and the vehicle only has 39,000 miles on it. I sent arbitration papers to chrysler twice with no response.”

“This is the 13th seperate Dakota that I know of that had evaporator failure at 38-41000 miles from the local caar airconditioning repair shop he sees hundreds a year from Dodge vehicles at about this mileage this has to be a inherant problem that should be fixed and recalled for proper fixing. Ive owned more than two dozen cars in my family including 8 chrysler cars and never had so much as one evaporator or air conditioner failure up to over 100000 miles just too much of a co-incidence that this could be happing to all of us please investigate thanks.”

“Air conditioning hose leading to aluminum assembly failed due to cut in hose. Middle portion of hose rests directly over one corner of plastic air filter cover assembly. At the corner of air filter cover there is a small vertical spline that is part of the molded pastic lid cover. The thickness of the spline is similar to a common plastic picnic knife but without serrations. Apparently over time due to vibration while driving, the hose rubbed against this plastic spline wearing a 1/4 inch slit/hole. When the hose finally rubbed through, the refrigerant decompressed rapidly. …”