Just recently my engine has started pinging. Its been hotter outside and I dont know if that made the difference because I bought it last december. I put some premium grade fuel in it and now it runs fine but it shouldnt need that to run properly.

My cars got 86k kms on it. What could be causing this?? I thought the timing belt was good till 100k kms???

Hotter outside air temp

Carbon build-up on all the typical places you have read before here.

Also, resetting the ECU may help it recalibrate itself.

run some mopar cumbustion chamber cleaner to remoe the carbon. this may help. Go to a dodge dealership and ask for it, just remove the air intake and spray it in the throttle body at idle speed untill the can is empty. It will smoke and cough and spudder for 5 to 10 min. but it is cleaning out the carbon deposits.
P.S. timing belts should be changed ever 60k

t belts on the 3.2 are good to 100k, the motor is non interference if it were to break anyway, nothing would be damaged. For the spark knock, make sure to clean the egr tube as well as the throttle body and intake. The tube is visable thru the intake if you hold the throttle body open, the tube is on the left rear portion of the intake. A rifle cleaning tool will give you the reach to get to the tube, and the valve is on the back left corner of the intake. The 10 mm bolts hold it on i think, that will give you access to the backside of the tube to spray some carb cleaner in it to break some of that carbon up. If that does not help, there is a pcm flash for 00 and 01 rodeos for valve ping, let us know how things go. T

Mine requires nothing less then 87 octane, if I run 85, which I've only done twice, she pings big time. The Compression ratio on the 3.2L's is 9:0, which does require nothing less then 87 octane.

it depends on wich YEAR 3.2 aharman1116. on a 97 it is recomended to change t belt at 60-70k. for the 2000 it is 100k i think.