Doesn’t look like much, but it worked good.
Not being satisfied with the way that the ’87 Chevy truck in many ways – power, comfort, etc – I was on the lookout for a cheap, reliable truck. I had the ’01 CR-V for day-to-day use. I’d spotted this little Dakota and the price was right.
I didn’t set out to specifically get a Dakota, but there wasn’t a lot of options around in the sub-$2000 range that wasn’t beat up. Worn out half-tons, full of body rot, mostly. So when the little Dakota appeared for $1100, I bought it.
Yay, a 5-speed!
So what did I get? A plum-purple, faded paint, 3.9 V6 5-speed extended cab Dakota. Mechanically it was fine. With only 120,000 KM on it, and a solid body and frame, it appeared to be a bargain. The engine pulled well, the transmission shifted nicely, and the brakes and front end were tight. For the small size, there was a lot of room inside it, and the seats were comfy enough. There wasn’t much wind noise, either. It was a bit dirty, though. Nothing a good cleaning wouldn’t fix. A good washing up and we were all set to go.
Chryslers of this age all seemed to have really nicely designed interiors. Love the backlighting on the dash.
We didn’t do much travelling while camping, usually within 2 hours of home. Turns out it wouldn’t have been a worry anyway. The truck never gave any trouble in my year of ownership. Fuel mileage was rumoured to be poor in these, but I would average around 20 MPG with it. Not bad. The 3.9 was an eager little engine too. Being port injected helped things. It could tow the old camper with ease at 110 KM/H where the Chevy could only have dreamed of doing.
New camper (on left), old truck.
My wife and I had decided to get a new camper. We found the little Trillium too small for the two of us plus our daughter, so we got ourselves a 12-foot Coleman popup. The little Dodge proved satisfactory for this duty as well.
I was looking at putting a fresh coat of paint on it, when one of my friends offered me his SUV at a good price. I knew it well, and it had an easy life. I couldn’t turn it down. I gave the little purple Dakota to my brother, whom it served well for a few years.
I’ve always had a soft spot for Chrysler products. When they’d get it right, they got it really right. These must have been a good truck for Chrysler – I still see them plugging along. It was a good, basic little truck.
I too liked the late-‘90s Chrysler instrument panel. Straightforward presentation, legible typeface, with a nice green glow at night. Pleasant and easy to read at a glance. I don’t drive new cars much, but based on trips to the annual auto show and the few rentals I’ve had in recent years I feel like some manufacturers have lost their way here, no longer prioritizing simplicity and ease of use in this way.
I have always liked these, my preference being the 2nd generation or maybe the blocky 1st generation, the 3rd generation? Not so much.
If I ever bought one I think I would try to find a 2nd generation but a regular cab.
I’m not sure why, but the metallic paint on these Dodges, and the full-sized Dodges for that matter, have a tired look that other trucks don’t seem to have, like the paint is thinner or the surface prep is not as good as it is on a Ford or Chevy.
My father decided he wanted to get another truck after years of driving 4 door sedans and found a Dakota at a Dodge dealership that was going out of business in a small town near home. He was quite satisfied after the short test drive but became less happy with the truck as time passed. His had the V8 and 4WD, so not very fuel efficient (after driving cars that had 4 or 6 cylinder engines it must have really been a shock), but a bigger concern (no pun intended) was the length of the extended cab. He often found it difficult to park and/or back out of parking spaces. He eventually traded it for a Ranger with 4WD and a regular cab. I was almost mad at him when he sold it without asking me if I wanted it… I did.
Yep, exactly what I’m dreaming to find. Actually I’d prefer the short cab with the eight foot bed (like my 94), but as you’ve mentioned, beggars can’t be choosers. And that 3.9 was a very underrated engine.
After yesterday I was waiting for you to pop in here. 🙂
RCLB 2nd gen…talk about a unicorn. I’ve seen maybe one in the metal, and that was for about 2 seconds at the I-74/80/280 interchange in IL.
We had a well abused 97 Dakota in our motor pool at work that was only recently retired two years ago. It had very low hard city miles on it (less than 50,000). That thing was always abused, taken on short trips around the city, engine idling for hours, rarely maintained. It didn’t ride very well probably because it was often overloaded but it started and ran reliably (with a lot of bucking and lurching.)
Years back, the Dakota always appeared to me to be just right in terms of size, not teeny and tinny like early Luvs and the imports from Japan, and not so big as to be unwieldy in normal use. And that was in the 1970s and 80s. Now, even mid-sized trucks are huge (my Tacoma DCLB is 18.5 feet long).
Yours looked perfect, V6 and a 5 speed. And when you can give it to a family member with no misgivings, then that makes it even more perfect.
Love km/h speedometers; if USA vehicles had these we might drive a bit more sedately while thinking we were buzzing right along. Just don’t look at the blue indices.
Chrysler products with which I am familiar have always had full instrumentation when other American brands offered a speedometer, a gas gauge, and a plethora of warning lights. Tell me, who needs a green warning light that says “COLD”?
I guess two warning lights were cheaper than one real temperature gauge. (Looking at you Oldsmobile.)
I’m not sure what the purpose of the Cold light was – take it easy on the car? A few modern cars had them too – I had a New Beetle that had a temperature light that’d be blue when the engine was cold.
Chrysler seemed to be ahead of the curve in instrumentation. The Horizon, Spirit, and this Dakota all had all gauges. The Shadow had everything but a tach and oil pressure gauge if I remember correctly.
I have always used the Cold Light as a signal for when it will do any good to turn on the heat. And in the days of carburetors it was always good to know when the choke was starting to come off because sometimes drivability changed.
I have had a few cars with Cold Lights – my 67 Galaxie and (interestingly) my 68 Chrysler Newport. My 2007 Honda Fit has one as well. But I prefer a gauge.
I was comparign some Mopars at car event with my 69 Dodge Polara and were surprise at the same think. The 71 Newport had a instrument lights instead of real temperature gauge. So even Dodge had something extra over the Chrysler, no matter its lesser brand.
The cold light on our New Beetle was handy when the coolant temp sensor went on the fritz, before it would finally trigger a CEL.
Worse than idiot lights because cynically cheap and insulting to the intelligence: idiot lights masquerading as gauges. TMK, Ford pioneered this “better idea” of pretend-gauges actually capable only of a midscale “normal” reading or a zero reading (or, depending on the gauge, a “normal” reading or a pegged reading).
Chrysler’s ’90s gauges weren’t the world’s most accurate or precise, but at least they were gauges.
Ford only did that with oil pressure gauges and that was because the fact is the average consumer thinks it is cool to have gauges but don’t have a clue as to what they mean. So many people who hadn’t experienced oil pressure gauges would freak out when at a hot idle the gauge read ~1/4 scale and the dealers got the fall out. Fact many of those Fords have real gauges, the same movement at the temp and fuel gauges, they just have a resistor in the circuit and a pressure switch that grounds at 8~10psi. Change the switch with a sender from an earlier Ford and bypass the resistor and you’ve got a properly working gauge.
Their temp gauges stayed real for a long time, longer than the Chrysler that switched to a ECU controlled gauge long ago, that told people what they expected to see. So those have a big dead range in the “normal” area.
Of course today many gauges are a lie and they tell you what the want you to know or what they think you want to know. With modern scan tools you can read the real info the computer is receiving and often the lie it is telling you.
The phony-gauge business got started with oil pressure gauges, yes, but didn’t end there. Somewhere I have archived my interview with the guy who grinned wryly—and/or maybe it was a grimmace—as he recounted firsthand how and when he, as a Ford engineer, devised the idea in the first place and sold it up the chain. He also described how dealer flak from freaked-out drivers was not the only impetus, but I don’t recall the particulars of the others. I’ll see about digging it up and if it can survive anonymisation I’ll include some info from it in a forthcoming post about instrument clusters.
My ’07 Honda Accord has a phony engine temperature gauge. It sits on “C” for a few minutes after first startup, then moves quickly to about 1/3 scale, that is just below the middle of the “Normal” range, and never moves from there. I replaced the original 170° thermostat with a 180° item, with a saucepan-on-the-stove test verifying about a 10F° difference in opening between the old and the new, the temp gauge behaviour didn’t change a bit. If I will move to a 190° stat, I fully expect the same.
I’m a Ford guy, but I have always been irritated by the on/off Ford guages. I think the fuel and temperature guages were the only ones that actually read correctly. The rest are either far left in the danger zone, straight up and down, or far right in the danger zone.
Australia being a hot country was worse, Holdens had one temperature light in red it would come on just slightly earlier than the head cracking, yes used heads are a dime a dozen and multifit across the red six range but really, how cheap can you get.
Yep, Holden was cheap with things like that, Valiants always had a temp gauge.
I wanted one of these when they were new. I do like Mopars. The flared body sides said “muscle truck” to me. Purple would have been a good choice. They’re starting to disappear off our streets in large numbers. That and the Durango.
They seemed to be proportioned right. The newer ones seemed to me to be a bit oversized in the front, if that makes any sense.
It had more frontal overhang and was cheaper looking. They looked like a PlayStation 1 version of a Dakota.
There was a lot that was ‘right’ about late-‘90s Chrysler products…
Key observation from your nice post: I’ve always had a soft spot for Chrysler products. When they’d get it right, they got it really right.
How true, how true. Chrysler could really get it right. However, as we have seen many times from various posts on CC they sure could get it really wrong too.
I had a 95 Dakota SLT extra cab with the shorty bed. Up until my kids hit their growth spurt it was a great all around vehicle. I had the 3.9 V6 and the 4 speed autobox, there really wasn’t little that it couldn’t tow or haul.
It was bigger than my in-laws’ Rangers and could haul proportionately haul more than them, too. Even in the mid-’90’s there was some standard pickup truck inflation going on, but I really liked the size of my Dak. It felt more like the size of a pickup truck from 1960’s, which is to say livable.
Unfortunately, the kids got too big to fit in the back and I wasn’t quite ready to relinquish the Topaz (it was paid for), so the Dak was traded in for a Pontiac Aztek.
Which is another story entirely.
I am with most of you on how when Chrysler managed to hit the target it was often a bulls eye. Both this and the original Durango exhibited nearly perfect styling.
I never had firsthand experience with one (or with that V6) but would do so if the right one came my way.
Ahh, the dreaded 90s clearcoat failure. Not a high enough SPF factor.
This was close to my Dakota, which was a 2000 Sport regular cab with the 3.9/five speed. A good truck, a great size for town and yet the bed was big enough and the suspension/drive/brakes with enough capacity that it could carry a lot. The 3.9 had very good torque, though it did not like to rev very high-just a good truck motor. It got at least 20 mpg, up to 25 on trips. It had a quiet, comfortable interior, though not very big-just enough to carry two people, really. After 200,000 miles it needed a lot of work, so I sold it to the buyer of the house we were renting when we moved. I wish it well, it was a good truck.
The engine temperature gauge is obviously in Celsius degrees, but what’s with the oil pressure gauge? It’s not in bar. Kilopascals, I guess?
I agree Chrysler put out some very well designed, easily legible instrument panels in the ’90s. This on the Dak is configured and lit very similarly to that on the AA-body (Spirit/Acclaim/LeBaron sedan/Saratoga). I prefer this type of setup over today’s massively overlit “infotainment” screens.
It could be kPa. Interesting that they picked 760 for the peak number (110 psi) as 760mm Hg is one atmosphere … engineer’s inside joke perhaps? What do other European or metric cars show for oil pressure (I’m in the US)?
In Europe is not common to show the oil pressure by the dedicated gauge. In fact I think car like Ford Focus RS or some other hot hatches along BMW M series have dedicated gauge for oil pressure. But regular everyday cars, of all brands, do not use it.
Perhaps you can find out this value somewhere deep in digital menu of modern cars, although i recall seeing only oil temperature value being available.
Here’s a pic of a Mercedes W124’s stock oil pressure gauge—calibrated in bar. And here’s one for a Renault Clio, apparently calibrated in PSI. Here’s one for an Opel Ascona—calibrated in bar with legend “×10^5 Pa”…you do you, GM. Meanwhile, here’s a Citroën BX panel with a stock oil pressure gauge, in bar with no screwy GM-type legend (the panel as a whole looks a great deal like the Chrysler AA-body panel).
Looks like the American ones used 110 PSI as the top pressure indication. They just converted it to the equivalent kPa for Canada, though that figure means very little to me, anyway.
Usually in bar; see examples here. Divide the kPa calibrations on the Dakota gauge by 100 to get bar.
Nice looking ute, Ive finally seen one and they look ok, not sold here obviously but someone has imported one used in red, if a diesel was available I’d have one though I have little use for that type of vehicle.20 mpg @ $2.50 per litre yeah you do the maths.
I think the late 1990s were the peak of well-designed instrument panels. The backlit gauges on this Dakota are easy-to-read, not distracting, and there are enough gauges to actually convey information.
I’ve noticed that among our 3 (soon to be 4) cars, the gauges on our ’95 Thunderbird are the most legible, with readability decreasing as our cars get newer.
I had a 99 Dakota, 2wd, reg cab, 8 foot bed. Paid $3000 and drove it for 6 years. Great truck. At 180,000+ miles the transmission was showing it’s age and the cab mounts were turning to powder so I scrapped it for $200. It was like putting down an old dog. As others have mentioned, the dashboard was great. I’d buy a new one if they still sold them.
I, too, owned a Dakota, if only briefly, about 8 months. A 2wd ‘93 LE (top trim level) reg cab with the 8 foot bed. Powered by the 5.2L (318 cid) V8. My anti-Chrysler Corp bias notwithstanding, it was only 3 years old with low mileage, so it never had a chance to disappoint me. My mechanic buddy made note of the intake manifold being kinda tall, and I must say, that truck was a barnstormer. At a mini-storage complex I floored it from a dead standstill; it was exhilarating as well a hilarious when the truck just starting to move, but was already enveloped in a cloud of smoke. It continued to spin the tires as it finally shifted into 2nd, and laid a patch about 20 garage doors long. I could have continued but the fence at the end of the row was fast approaching. Top speed was an easy 115 mph, computer limited. I agree with many that the truck was almost perfectly right-sized. Almost. While I appreciated the full 8 foot bed, which was welcome compared to the 7 footers of a long bed compact truck; there was one dimension that still relegated it to a “compact” class of trucks: bed width between the fenderwells. On too many occasions, I need the ability to load a standard pallet into my trucks. On the compacts, they’ll always hold the volume and usually the weight, but palettized material has to off-loaded from the pallet to the truck. It just makes a job harder than it needs to be. In addition, the 5.2L got horrible fuel economy, about 10mpg, at least seeing as how I was accustomed to the high-teens mpg of my jap 4 bangers. But…personal circumstances ends my relationship with that Dodge.
One my son’s friends has had a 90’s Dakota in the purple for many years, he has kept it in excellent condition and I see it from time to time around the area as it is hard to miss in that purple color and near showroom condition.