Five problems related to differential unit have been reported for the 2000 Dodge Dakota. The most recently reported issues are listed below.
Clips in rear differential broke (believe they held the spring to the clutch plates). Car is Dodge Dakota 2000, with 80,000 miles of light use ( no towing, light and infrequent hauling) beleive there is a design defect with the clips that may cause premature failure in the rear differential.
While pulling away from a stop light the pinion nut fell off, causing the rear end to lock up. This caused the pinion to twist inside the differential, and lock up between the differential casing and the ring gear.
Front drive axel, left mount broke. Dodge has a TSB # 889 issued on Aug 2000, regarding this. This TSB covers the front axel pinnion nose bracket bolts which may losen. These loose pinnion bracket bolts cancan cause the bracket to break off. In addition a customer satisfaction notification was issued to replace bracket bolts. At this time Dodge is talking about $3,400 for repair at my cost. Otherwise I'm still work on resolving this issue. Vehical has 52,000 miles on odometer with less than 50 miles on front drive axel.
Rear differential on vehicle locked up and the pinion shaft behind the forward differential bearing sheared and the entire drive shaft fell out of the truck. The consumer believed the vehicle was made with poor quality or sub-standard parts.
Failure of rear differential.