I have a 2000 Dodge Dakota SLT V6 with 145000 miles. I bought the car Sept 2020 and within a few days of driving it (about a week) I was having issues. When I took it to my mechanic who found out that BOTH the heads had cracks in them (He said the previous owner most likely used stop leak to hide it). They had the heads resurfaced but no matter how many times I took it to them, the P0303 kept coming up. They pretty much had the vehicle from Sept to December. Things finally fixed and since then the only issues I had were coolant hoses going bad.

Well, about 2 weeks ago the engine started doing the weird things again - wouldn't start right away (had to crank the engine several times), white smoke coming out the tail pipe (dealer said they saw the white smoke; I haven't seen it), rough idle, and every once in a while while I am driving there is a HUGE hesitation that feels like the engine was about to cut out. I took it to a Dodge dealership (huge mistake) and they basically said I need a whole new engine. When I asked them how they came to that conclusion, they basically said their guy has seen this happen and just knows.

Are these symptoms that the heads are cracked again or could the gaskets just be bad. Would it be worth fixing or should I try to get rid of it. My wife and I don't have a lot of money so we are not sure what to do.