All the 1st Gen Durangos in the yard have 5.2 318. My truck has the 3.9 V6.
There is a lesson in the prevalence of 318 (5.2L) engines in the wreckers yard.
The original '98 Durangos came with either the (318) 5.2L engine standard or the optional (360) 5.9L. There was a V-6 too but that was actually a delete order from the standard V8 option. Early on the 5.2L began to have issues. The 5.2 turned out to throw a lot of oil sludge. This caused oil related bearing failures--particularly for lazy owners who did not change their oil frequently. This actually hurt Durango sales as the oil related bearing failures caused an overall reputation for Durango's being unreliable. The 4.7L with SOC eventually replaced the 5.2. Chrysler engineers determined the 98th percentile of 4.7L engines would reach 145K miles before failure, making it a far more reliable engine than the 5.2.
The poor reliability reputation actually helped me as I bought two gently used 1st Gen Durangos, an 00 with 5.9L and an 03 with 4.7L far cheaper than other truck based SUVs.
The 4.7 is a good reliable engine, but gas mileage is almost the same as the 5.7L Hemi for almost 65 less horsepower (depending on model year, and a bunch of other variables).
