2000 Dodge Dakota 2000 Dakota white smoke and overheated

STRYPED

MEMBER
2000 DODGE DAKOTA
6 CYL
2WD
AUTOMATIC
160,000 MILES

My brother has a 2000 Dakota that overheated on him and is now blowing tons of white smoke. It is a v6. Cooling system I think was empty. A few weeks before this had Midas do 700 bucks worth of ccoling system flushing and heater core replacement.

Anyway, he took it back to Midas and they said it would be about 3 hours labor at around 70 bucks an hour to find out what is wrong. A tech there offered to buy it from him for 275 dollars.

Anyway he is getting another vehicle and giving it to me. It is a king cab with about 160,000 on it.

I am assuming this is the head gasket. Is this a hard job? How can I tell if it is the gasket and not a head cracked or block cracked?

1 Reply

JACOBANDNICKOLAS

MECHANIC
109,885 POSTS

Hi:
Yes, white smoke indicates coolant in the combustion chamber. Most likely a head gasket or the intake. Listen, if you just had all of that work done on the cooling system and then this happened, I wouldn't pay a cent for the repairs. If the truck lost the coolant, chances are they caused the problem. I would go after them to repair it or return the cost of their repairs. At least that would help fix it. Also, you really need the heads to be checked by something like a machine shop. They will be able to check if the head warped or if it has cracked.

Do not change the title into your name until you go after them. They were all over the cooling system with their work, and if there was a major problem, they should have told you.

Let me know what happens.

Joe