1993 Dodge Dakota Tie Rod Ends

Maintenance/Repairs
1

I have a 1993 Dodge Dakota 4 cyl two wheel drive truck that needs tie rod ends. First I tried myself twice to order new ones and and they were the wrong parts. I left the truck with a local mechanic and he had no luck. I left the truck with a national chain repair shop for a month and they could not find them either. I have tried parts shops and Dodge dealers - no luck. They send plenty of tie rod ends but they never are the right ones. I suppose the only solution is to take the ends into a large parts shop and have them walk around to see if any match. I have tried VIN numbers, still no luck.

2

Wrong in what manner, the word ‘wrong’ doesn’t tell us anything.
Are you applying the correct terminology here ?
I see outer or inner tie rod ends. yet many customers mis-use the term when looking at their sway bar links.
Some don’t call the inner rods ‘‘tie rod ends’’ so if your after inners , maybe they keep sending outers.
different for manual or power steering too.
or the year could be wrong as well. ( they don’t get different till 97 or 90 )

3

Rockauto shows all kinds of tie rod ends for your truck.

http://www.rockauto.com/catalog/raframecatalog.php?ck[year_1994]=true&ck[mkt_US]=true&ck[mkt_EU]=false&ck[mkt_CA]=false&ck[mkt_MX]=false&ck[viewcurrency]=USD&ck[ID]=0&ck[idlist]=0&ck[PHP_SESSION_ID]=0cgatgrflj1lrnn3mktj47j6a5

See anything that looks like the ones for your vehicle?

Tester

4

Many parts houses incorrectly refer to both inners and outers as “ends” so maybe that’s where confusion lies.

AutoZone does the same thing. The 2 top ones are “tie rod ends”; the 2 lower ones are tie rods.

If this is about the inners I vaguely remember something about some inner Dakota tie rods (not ends) being difficult to obtain and possibly only with the replacement of the steering rack.
Fuzzy memory so that may not be correct.