Some preventative maintenance..Dakota... questions

From : mac

Q: my 97 dakota with about 80000 miles was at the dodge dealer getting some minor service recently and my service rep and tech said the truck needs 2 things based on their observation 1 flush brake fluid which was never done before 2 clean throttle body. i dont do these kinds of things myself so i want to know whether i should have the dealer do it $120 for #1 and $139 for #2 or is this simple enough to have any mechanic do it much cheaper...though i dont know any actually other than the dodge dealer. .

Replies:

From : bob

on 1/31/2005 757 pm mac wrote my 97 dakota with about 80000 miles was at the dodge dealer getting some minor service recently and my service rep and tech said the truck needs 2 things based on their observation 1 flush brake fluid which was never done before 2 clean throttle body. i dont do these kinds of things myself so i want to know whether i should have the dealer do it $120 for #1 and $139 for #2 or is this simple enough to have any mechanic do it much cheaper...though i dont know any actually other than the dodge dealer. $139 for a throttle body cleaning is a complete ripoff imo. it can be done in 15 minutes in a driveway with 2-3 hand tools a rag and a bottle of tb cleaner. total cost if you dont have those items under $30 plus a new tb gasket $1 and a little time. shop around at least for the tb cleaning. -- -andy .

From : andy levy

i just bought a 2000 dakota last week that came with the towing package. im having difficulty determining just what that means besides the hitch receiver. from my guesstimation and net research it means heavy duty rear brakes and a 3.55 rear end anything else i also put it to work this weekend hauling a yard of bulk topsoil. from what the guy said at the place it probably weighed around 1800 pounds so i know it was a leetle overloaded even though the 4.7v8 powered along like it was a piece of cake. the truck was very noticeably sagging on the ass end but more bothersome was when i went over a small water channel dip in the street at about 15-20mph and the damn thing bounced front-to-back like crazy even banged the rear bumper on the ground. so the question is do i need new shocks or springs or was this just because i had exceeded the specified load i did the bounce-on-the-bumper test and it seemed a bit loose but i dont know how bouncy these trucks are right out of the box. the truck has just over 100000 miles on it. thanks for any insight. .