Hello I have a 1998 Dodge dakota sport 2.5L engine 5 speed manual transmission at 105k miles and am wondering if this truck will last or even be reliable cause it’s a dodge so I’m wondering if this 4 cylinder pick up is reliable enough for what it is and if I should keep it
2.5L engine 5 speed manual transmission
The 4 cylinder in this truck is an AMC engine.
wondering if this truck will last
I can't predict the future and this is a 26 year old truck. I would keep this vehicle and use it as a secondary/backup vehicle.
wondering if this truck will last
It's already lasted 26 years. (If it died tomorrow it would still have lasted a long time.) How much longer do you realistically expect to get out of it?
It’s been my daily for over a year and it’s surprisingly still running strong when I got it I got it at 98,000 miles and replaced the power steering pump, water pump, radiator and fan, and did a tune up along side with that but I’m not sure if I should invest time and money on it because it’s a dodge Dakota and not sure if it’s worth putting effort
They can last but as you're finding as time progresses it will need more and more repairs, until finally something really major breaks. How long that will take no one can say but it's well along the way.
Okay thank you guys very much I appreciate it
What that truck has going for it is the AMC/Jeep engine and the manual transmission. Those will probably last quite a while if maintained. However there are plenty of other expensive things to go wrong. Of course if you do your own repair work driving an old beater is more of a viable proposition but you have to know when to let go.
When do you think a good time to let go of the truck
That's a judgement call that only the owner can make taking into account overall condition and the cost of needed repairs. What I do is keep vehicles until until a really major and costly repair is needed. Then the next owner is the junkyard and I buy another beater. Repeat as needed.
Those old Dodge Dakotas were better made than Dodge trucks nowadays. Back then, Dodge was made by Daimler. They actually increased slightly in their quality. The opposite has happened under Fiat and Stellantis. Manual transmissions are a lot more durable than automatics, but Dodge was never great for quality electronics. My father-in-law has a 1998 Dodge Ram 2500 Turbodiesel made by Cummins and half the time the radio doesn't work.
