1998 Grand Caravan

Go out and look, and you'll probably find you're misremembering. With a
4-speed automatic, the shift quadrant reads P R N D 3 L. With a 3-speed
automatic, the shift quadrant reads P R N D 2 1.

GM does it differently with a 4-speed: "P R N [D] D 3 2 1", while Ford
usually gives you "P R N (D) 3 1".

 

For the benefit of those who are new here and/or haven't been
following the various Caravan transmission discussions, which of those
two transmissions tends to have the most maintenance problems, in the
early-to-mid 90's Grand Caravans?

 

IIRC, the 3 speed tranmission is a GOOD tranmission. It has not had
any particular problems that I recall reading about here. The only
problem was that most vehicles were not equipped with it!

The 4 speed automatic ( AKA A-604 or 41te in more recent years) is the
one with the problems. It is also the most common trans found in the
Caravans. Based on my experience, and what I have read here, I would
say that earlier models (early to mid 90s) are the ones that had the
most problems. Newer versions appear to be better, but you must be
mindful of the high maintenence requirements compared with the older
tranmissions. In the old days pretty much all you had to do was make
sure the fluid was topped up, and that was about it. The tranny ran
until it died, and that was somewhere between 150,000 and 300,000
MILES. The A-604 is a nasty piece of work by comparision. You should
change the fluid and filter every one to two years. It is NOT designed
to do any particular amount of towing, and if not properly maintained
will die at an early age.

My 94 GC dropped the tranny at approximately 130,000 km, or
approximately 81,000 miles and it did so before the van was 10 years
old. It had to be rebuilt twice - once at charge, and once on
"warranty" before it was rebuilt correctly. Touch wood, I am about
30,000 kms into the second rebuild and all seems well.

Prior to owning this vechicle, I had all GMs. My old 68 nova went
130,000 miles before the powerglide started to have problems. The
rebuild cost me $150, and another $150 to re & re. My old 79 malibu
went in excess of 300,000 kms before I sold it. NEVER had a problem
with the transmisison - ever. My 88 cutlass cruiser had almost 250,000
kms on it when I traded it in, again NO tranmission problems of any
kind.

When you compare those numbers to the A-604, the A-604 has performed
quite badly. It appears that DC released the design long before it was
really ready, and has been using the general driving public as part of
its R&D efforts at our expense. Having said that, this is water under
the bridge. The newer incarnations of the 41te seem to be generally
more reliable, and people are now acutely aware of the maintenence
requirements, so things tend to last longer. Whether the reliability
is up to snuff, only time will tell.

And, despite all that, I love driving my GC. Mine has the 3.3l engine
- the total opposite of the trans! It is a rock, but that is another
story. (just STAY AWAY from the 3.0l engine). It is a great vehicle
that has - touch wood - never left me stranded.

 

My wife drives a 1989 Caravan. Had the transmission replaced at about
95,000 the second one has about 50,000 on it. I do no maintence on this
transmission other the check the fluid. My wife also drives it harder
than I would. It is my experience that any transmission that makes it
to about 100,000 in Phx, AZ is doing about all it can. I had Ford
C-4's that only went around 75,000. Ford C-6 seem to go a lot longer.

Yes the caravan was never ment to tow anything.

 

Hmmm - you do no maintenance and then make broad statements about life
expectations of transmissions where you live? I don't live in Phoenix,
but I'm thinking that if you would change the fluid and filter once in a
while, you might get better service out of them. Fluid changeouts in
today's trannies are almost a must for higher mileage.

Bill Putney
(To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my
address with the letter 'x')

 

I haev not checked on my '94 yet, but my 1990 grand caravan has it: P R N OD
D L.... And the tcc does disengage when the accellerator is released in D.
(But it does still provide pretty good engine braking in D.)

 

D.

how do you know this ?

scan tool ?

 

My guess would be "tachometer." If the TCC doesn't disengage, there will
be no drop in RPM when you lift your foot off the gas. Its also obvious
that the RPM will flare high then drop down when you get BACK on the gas
as the TCC locks up shortly afterward.

 

And you would be correct.

Absolutely correct.

My guess is that the gear labels on the newer vans may not be the same as
the older ones. I believe my 1990 is the first year they came out with the
A-604 and 3.3 litter engine.

One thing my 1990 beater does that my 1994 didn't is shift to overdrive no
matter what position the accelerator is in at about 85-90 MPH (well, while
in overdrive of course). If I feel like being really mean to 'er and pushing
it to 100+ I have to put the gearshift in drive to keep 'er from shifting to
OD. (You should see the blue paint fly off then!) My 1994 will always
downshift to 3rd past 70 MPH when the gas is floored.

 

My 1994 had an "O/D OFF" button on the dash.

My paint got scratched up by the previous owner, but in spite of that,
I have NOT had the problems that I have seen iwht other vans! Damn,
there are some around that I swear you can watch the paint peal off af
they drive in traffic! What the hell happened? Did CHrysler have sone
nasty process problem?? Any recalls for this?

 

In fact I remember seeing a link to a site that discussed secret
warranties, and that ia in fact one of them. Anyone have that link?

There ought to be a special warranty on LH car a.c. evaporators.

Bill Putney
(To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my
address with the letter 'x')

 

Look up paint delamination....it wasnt just a Chrysler issue...
GM didnt "recall" the cars, but we did what was called a tape test...2
inches of packing tape across the hood, and RIP.....if it came up, you got a
repaint to the first set of trim moldings on the side.
They ended that one too.

Secret warranties..LOL...aint NO such thing.
There are however, GOODWILL REPAIRS, and SBs and dealers that can get a
known common repair covered by the local rep...oh..thats a goodwill repair.

Why?
Yours fail out of warranty and you had to spend some money?

 

Is this a joke?

 

If you're implying that I'm one of those people that think that cars
ought to be warranteed forever, I'm not. However, for something that
will cost the owner *major* expense, and I say this as an engineer,
engineering practice says that you make sure you design that area well
into the bell curve. Can they be made to do a good will coverage as
other auto makers often do to keep customers that deserve a little more
than what they got? Absolutely not. Can I be forced to buy product
from a company that takes major expenses of their customers so lightly?
Absolutely not. It's called free market.

Truth is that a huge percentage of LH car evaporators fail after only a
few years of normal use. There *is* such a thing as implied warranty of
merchantability, and if it was pushed in the legal system, they'd lose
the case on that one.

Bill Putney
(To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my
address with the letter 'x')

 

Well, actually, yea..you are sounding like someone that thinks that ,
(oh..wait..yer an engineer)..

As someone thats seen both ends of the market, and still sees the automotive
end regularly now that I have gotten out of it for the most part..nothings
wrong with the evaps on the LH line...altho I think many people have gotten
that snow job line before..you know...charge to replace that evap, but
instead spend 5 hours replacing every damn O-ring on the system, cause some
engineer thought it would be good for business if they were all impossible
to get to , and failed regularly.

Nope. Not at all.
Actually, in practice, more evaps failed on another brand of vehicle. But
you know, 3 years or 36,000 miles is the warranty, you bought it, you
accepted it, and if it fails after that, its yours.
Implied warranty of merchantability ok...that simply means that the car will
run, and the AC will cool when you buy it...thats it..nothing more.
Yea...take em on man...the legal definition of what you just stated is
nohting but the fact that the cars gonna run...anything they add on after,
you just get extra.

As an engineer, I know its hard to understand...but just because it looks
good on paper....real worlds a bit different...and yes, I mean that the way
it sounds.

 

Sounding and being are two different things.

If anyone unbderstands real-world realities of good and bad designs,
it's engineers.

....and I also fall into that category.

OK wise guy (and I mean that in the friendliest of ways) , as soon as
the weather warms back up, when I charge my system back up and use the
combination of electronic sniffer (just bought it) and dye (put in last
summer), you're telling me that I should fully expect to find zero leaks
in the evap., and instead should find leaks at one or more of the
several o-ring'ed joints? If that's going to be the case, then this
conversation will have been well worth it.

Tell me one thing: I could answer this myself by getting back into the
diagrams and procedures (been a few weeks since I studied them), but you
can save me the trouble - can I get to all of the o-rings without taking
the dash out? (I can't recall if the evap. joints are on the engine or
passenger compartment side of the firewall.)

And you totally missed my point about (legalities and reasonableness
aside) - I can decide not to buy another of their vehicles for any
reason - valid or not. Ask Ford and GM about that.

If I wasn't genuinely wanting your answer on the above question, I'd say
something else - I'll wait until you give me a good answer, and then
tell you (and even then, I just need to look at the FSM and other
sources to figure it out - paper meets real world, eh).

Bill Putney
(To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my
address with the letter 'x')

 

Aint that the truth...you guys design it, and then we get to tell you how
bad it sucks....LOL

First of all, I REALLY hope you didnt get anything in the sniffer but a
Inficon, or a CPS. Anything else, you can throw away. In an automotive
enviroment, you are gonna want one you can actually trust, and those are the
ONLY two, unless of course, you went for the 110VAC H1. Then....hats off to
you...but Inficon or CPS...No Tiff or other rebreanded crap.
And dye.....gads....that shit exists for only one reason...to eat o-rings...

kiddin

kiddin about the o-rings and dye....

but yea...I expect you will find you have no leaks at the evap. At least 90%
of the ones I have seen have had no leaks at the evap...most are at the
expansion valve, or compressor seals.

IIRC, yes.

LOL..depends...if you are an EE or an ME you can kindly GFU..LOL
Sorry...i know there are a couple in here that HATE it when I do that.

 

Yep - I was coming back to post what a mental refresh from the FSM told
me - a single flange joint on the engine side of the firewall -
expansion valve-to-evap. Yay!! The difficult parts will be getting
into the expansion valve/filter drier area, but I've had the cowling off
before for windshield wiper, brake booster, and inner tie rod bushings
before (more good design, eh?) - and the condensor connections - yeah -
been partly in that area before to replace cooling fan motors - more
poor engineering. But anything is better than having to pull the dash
off to get to the evap. I was going to replace all o-rings and the
filter/drier when I did the evap., but will forget doing the evap.
unless I detect refrigerant coming thru the vents and/or see florescence
out the condensate drain tube.

Hmmm - shouldn't that have been GFY? That's Ok - I understand if you
can't spell too well. Actually I'm sort of both (ME - EE) and sort of
neither. Degree is in Engineering Science and Mechanics (ESM) - kind of
a blend of mechanical and materials science, and yet I am self-taught in
electronics design, am licensed, and practiced as if a EE in medical,
aerospace, and automotive for over 20 years even though my engineering
degree is not EE.

Bill Putney
(To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my
address with the letter 'x')

 

Read what I wrote again...there area a couple in here that hate it when I do
that,.....do what? Oh...use a U when it shoudl be a Y...
Roy...wannna step in and see if SF#2009 gets it? or maybe its just a BF45
that we got here....LOL

Calm down....the humor here is well...odd.

 

And you're an ass. (there's the smiley to make the insult "ok.")

Yes, I'm a dreaded engineer too. But I also happen to be a
knuckle-bustin' "got grease in my thumbprints as I type this,"
do-it-myself car guy. The two aren't incompatible, you know.

Possibly true on paper, and spoken just like the lawyers intended. But
the background information is that that Chrysler didn't have *any*
"common" AC evaporator rot-through failures until the LH cars. I'm sure
some did fail, but not commonly. In 40+ years of having Chrysler
products in the family, I've had to replace exactly ONE evaporator core-
in an LH car. Statistically significant taken by itself? No. Significant
when combined with the acknowledgement by Chrysler engineers that there
WAS a problem with the early LH cores? YES! Now there were some valid
excuses for them. The LH car was the first Chrysler vehicle to get an
R-134a refrigeration system, and therefore the first car to get an
aluminum evaporator core. I'm sure it even went through and passed a lot
of accelerated corrosion testing... but there are cases where all the
testing in the world won't catch something that happens in the REAL
world where wall-clock/calendar time can't be simulated in the lab. Mold
and dirt stick to evaporators and over time do things that you can't
predict in accelerated testing.

But the bottom line is that once the company engineers realized that
there was a design problem, they really should have made it a lifetime
warranty on that part (one replacement per vehicle with the upgraded
part, trackable by the VIN) rather than saving a buck and losing a lot
of credibilty by essentially saying "Yes, that part is prone to
corrosion failure, but hey! Yours lasted out the warranty so you're SOL.
If it had failed 1000 miles sooner, SURE we'd have fixed it, but not
now!" Actually, I'm about 100% certain that if the decision had been
made by the ENGINEERS, they'd have done just what I said. But the
lawyers and accountants make those kinds of decisions. Oh, but I forgot.
We engineers are the bad guys that never get into the real world and
don't care about what happens after a design leaves our drafting
boards.... Sorry for not knowing my place...

And yet you're the one who's saying "Sorry pal, on paper the warranty
says 3/36 or 7/70... so the REAL WORLD fact that your evap core failed
for a known defect outside that period is irrelevant to me, I live by
what it says on paper." Not only are you an ass, you're a two-faced ass.
And I mean that the way it sounds.

As for your claim about it "usually being O-rings," well all I can say
in my case is that there aint no stinking O-rings in the big middle of
the evaporator core, and that's the place the oil stain was on mine. Do
O-rings leak? Yep, especially those crappy green HBNR ones that Ford
pushed for and have kinda become standard R-134a parts (get the
blue-coated type when you do R-134a repair work).