6 safety recall campaigns, 4 carrying NHTSA's "park it" advisory, 1 defect investigation (1 open), 53 owner complaints filed with NHTSA.
4 campaigns covering the 2011 DODGE DAKOTA carry NHTSA’s “park it” advisory — the federal government telling owners to stop driving the vehicle until the remedy has been performed. Whether it was performed on any particular car is not something NHTSA publishes in a form anyone can query; a franchised dealer can run the VIN and print the record in a minute, and the repair is free.
Complaints are reports from owners of this model year, not findings about any particular vehicle, and a model that sold in large numbers will collect more of them. They are counted here as filed; nothing is inferred from them.
In the event of a crash necessitating deployment of the passenger's frontal air bag, the inflator could explode with metal fragments striking the vehicle occupants potentially resulting in serious injury or death.
An inflator explosion may result in sharp metal fragments striking the driver or other occupants resulting in serious injury or death.
These vehicles are equipped with certain air bag inflators assembled as part of the passenger frontal air bag modules, and used as original equipment or replacement equipment. These inflators may rupture due to propellant degradation occurring after long-term exposure to absolute humidity and temperature cycling. An inflator rupture may result in metal fragments striking the vehicle occupants resulting in serious injury or death.
In the event of a crash necessitating deployment of the driver's frontal air bag, the inflator could rupture with metal fragments striking the driver or other occupants resulting in serious injury or death.
If the rear axle pinion nut loosens, the axle can lock up and cause a loss of vehicle control and/or a vehicle crash with little warning.
Overheating of the battery separator can result in smoke and possible fire.
Two 2011 DODGE DAKOTAs can have entirely different histories, and a recall campaign usually covers a build-date window rather than a whole model year — which a VIN does not encode, so only the door-jamb label settles it. Scanning the VIN adds the decode, the crash tests, the fuel economy and the complaints matched to that exact engine, trim and assembly plant.