01 Dakota 3.9 losing power on highway

From : rh

Q: i am going to try and describe this as best as possible. i have an 01 dakota 2wd 3.9 while i am on the highway going 50-70mphi dont notice it in the citythe truck will start to slow downyou can feel itbut it seems the rpms dont changethen a few seconds later you can feel it accelerating again like i hit the gas harder or somethingbut i dont move my foot. i am thinking it could be a fuel pump or filter but has this model got any other strange flaws that might cause this .

Replies:

From : ol duffer

nospam@spam.com says... i havent had any check engine lights yet. i only notice it on the highway right nowi dont drive far enough between stops in the city to notice it. its very strangeim sure since its me it will be something that costs thousands to fix. might be time to consider trading it in. not everything that causes temporary poor running logs an error code and not all error codes light the mil. theres a whole heirarchy involving severity duration number of times it happened that i dont know all the details of. i do know you can learn a lot with an obdii interface pod like autotap or proscan and a laptop computer. my pod has paid for itself in saved dealer labor cost and i already had the computer anyway. the local autozone and probably a lot of other similar parts places has a more basic code reader that they will plug in for free might be a good starting point. .

From : nosey

never heard of that lol. is there anything i can do to clean all the sensors off carb cleaneretc i know absolutely nothing about any of this stuff. im not too familiar with the 3.9l engine so i dont know which sensors can be cleaned. on most electronic fuel injected vehicles the throttle position sensor tells the computer how far you are pushing the gas pedal down. the computer uses that information and signals from some other sensors to determine how much fuel to give the engine. if the throttle position sensor is sending a flaky signal to the computer it might think you are moving the gas pedal up and down when you are holding it steady. -- ken .

From : rh

rh wrote i am going to try and describe this as best as possible. i have an 01 dakota 2wd 3.9 while i am on the highway going 50-70mphi dont notice it in the citythe truck will start to slow downyou can feel itbut it seems the rpms dont changethen a few seconds later you can feel it accelerating again like i hit the gas harder or somethingbut i dont move my foot. i am thinking it could be a fuel pump or filter but has this model got any other strange flaws that might cause this throttle position sensor -- ken never heard of that lol. is there anything i can do to clean all the sensors off carb cleaneretc i know absolutely nothing about any of this stuff. .

From : nosey

rh wrote i am going to try and describe this as best as possible. i have an 01 dakota 2wd 3.9 while i am on the highway going 50-70mphi dont notice it in the citythe truck will start to slow downyou can feel itbut it seems the rpms dont changethen a few seconds later you can feel it accelerating again like i hit the gas harder or somethingbut i dont move my foot. i am thinking it could be a fuel pump or filter but has this model got any other strange flaws that might cause this throttle position sensor -- ken .

From : rh

nospam@spam.com says... while i am on the highway going 50-70mphi dont notice it in the citythe truck will start to slow downyou can feel itbut it seems the rpms dont changethen a few seconds later you can feel it accelerating again like i hit the gas harder or somethingbut i dont move my foot. could be as simple as the a/c compressor turning on and off as needed if so it is normal. or could be an oxygen sensor going south causing overly lean fuel mix for a short time. or a number of other things. any pattern to the behavior only when warming up then clears itself check for trouble codes lately i havent had any check engine lights yet. i only notice it on the highway right nowi dont drive far enough between stops in the city to notice it. its very strangeim sure since its me it will be something that costs thousands to fix. might be time to consider trading it in. .

From : ol duffer

nospam@spam.com says... while i am on the highway going 50-70mphi dont notice it in the citythe truck will start to slow downyou can feel itbut it seems the rpms dont changethen a few seconds later you can feel it accelerating again like i hit the gas harder or somethingbut i dont move my foot. could be as simple as the a/c compressor turning on and off as needed if so it is normal. or could be an oxygen sensor going south causing overly lean fuel mix for a short time. or a number of other things. any pattern to the behavior only when warming up then clears itself check for trouble codes lately .