Love this truck! This truck has been going strong for 17 years. I've travelled from California to North Carolina and many points in between. The interior materials are of lesser quality, but durable. The V8 engine requires little beyond regular maintenance. No issues with the transmission. It gets better fuel economy than a full size truck. The paint has held up remarkably well given the age and abuse it's been put through.

Crystal

Houston, Texas

3.0

1995 Dakota trans problems

I love the way my Dakota drove. It was quiet inside. There was no road noise at all when driving. But one day, out of the blue, I was driving to a funeral, and I was on the highway, it was slightly raining outside. The roads were wet, and my transmission literally just stopped working. Like a light switch it went from working to non working on the freeway! I didn't have a wreck luckily, but it scared me. I had my mechanic fix the transmission, and that was very expensive and took a week to do. The mechanic told me that the Dakota trucks are prone to transmission problems. He has seen many of them in his years as a mechanic, and apparently Dodge has never fixed the problem. He said that even the newer Dakotas and Ram trucks are having these same issues. Other than the problem with the transmission, my truck is wonderful still. I'm still driving it on weekends. I haven't had any other big issues with the truck and have only had to do oil changes and replace belts, fuses and regular maintenance items on the vehicle. So overall, I would say that before buying this vehicle, have your mechanic thoroughly check it out. Just be aware that this problem may occur for your truck like it did mine and many others!