My dad's 96 v6 AT Ram has close to 200k miles on it and runs fine. No tranny trouble. He does not baby the truck at all, and it sees all kinda of on-road/off-road abuse. He did rebuild the upper part of the engine (valves and stuff) but that was real easy and not expensive. I would think a dakota would be similar. I know of people that have more problems with chevies than any other truck,, but I guess it can be different for each particular vehicle.
