99 Caravan, Just up and died!!

I have a 1999 Caravan, 3.0L, driving on the highway at about 100km/h when it
just up and died, completely. About 10 km before that the Service Engine
light came on but the van keep running smooth.

Battery is fine, full of gas, won't even turn over !!! Not even a click or
anything.

I'm open to suggestions.

 

I have two easy things you can try. A cracked solder joint in the
instrument cluster can cause your symptom. Try pounding on the dash,
see if it starts. Pounding on the dash jiggles the connection a bit and
makes it work temporarily. This seems to be a fairly common problem in
late 90's models.

The other thing you can do is run the instrument panel self-test:

The following is derived from the '97 factory service manual:
The instrument cluster can self test and give you some diagnostics.
With
the ignition switch off, hold down the odo trip and reset buttons.
While
holding these buttons down, turn the ignition switch to on and keep
holding
the buttons down. Continue to hold in the buttons until the word codE
appears in the odo window, it should take about 5 seconds. If there
are
problems, you will get trouble codes. If there is no problem, you will
get
a 999 code for end of test. When chec-0 is displayed, the display will
dim
down. If brightness doesn't change there is a problem.

Codes: 110 memory fault in cluster
111 calibration fault in cluster
905 not CCD bus message from TCM,
921 odo fault from BCM,
940 no CCD bus message from PCM.
999 end of test (if this is the only code, no errors detected)

When chec-1 is displayed the gauges will move through their calibration
points.
When CHEC-2 is displayed, the odo digits will light sequentially.
Chec-3 is
the PRND3L check.

I had a problem like yours, and got code 940. My PCM (powertrain
control module, or engine computer) had died.
-Paul

 

Why would a solder joint cause a car to die out? you can remove the cluster
from the vehicle and it will run.

Glenn Beasley
Chrysler Tech

 

when you say battery is fine, how do you know that?

Glenn Beasley
Chrysler tech

 

I was going to reply saying the same thing. My 98 G Voyager has had an
intermittent problem with the cluster going completely dead, and it didn't
affect the way the van ran at all. I opened up the power centre under the
hood and cleaned it out (it was very dirty) and that seemed to fix the
cluster problem, as well as made the van run better.

 

The bad solder joint is the ground for the cluster. I'm an electronics
tech. When you have a bad ground, strange things can happen, I can
assure you. Lines that OUGHT to be at ground can then have 12V on them.
That's a different situation than a totally disconnected cluster. As
you surely know, the instrument cluster communicates with the PCM and
BCM, which CAN keep the car from starting. Maybe it's as simple as
putting a steady 12V on the communication bus, keeping the PCM and BCM
from communicating.

That said, I don't have any experience with this problem, but when I
was diagnosing my bad PCM I searched the internet for similar problems.
I ran across an extensive thread on this bad ground problem. A lot of
people responded saying they had this bad ground problem too, and they
confirmed it by pounding on the dash. Unfortunately, it didn't help me,
my PCM was faulty. However, the instrument cluster self-test did
confirm that my PCM wasn't communicating with the instrument cluster.

I saved part of the text from that thread, I'll paste it below. A lot
of happy people said this solved their problem, so I'm a believer.
-Paul


Sometimes my van won't start and run but then minutes to hours later it
is fine. These are the things that happen: 97 T&c Intermittant Dash
Display And Stalls, Need help with codes 12,66,55 intermittent start
problem '98 Caravan Sport

1. Put key in, van starts and there is no trouble.

2. Put key in, turn key and have no power to fuel gauge, speedometer,
tach, temperature gauge, gear indicator, odometer. All the indicators
in the top panel: check engine, ABS, Alarm, etc. function properly; van
will "start" but dies the instant I let go of the key.

3. Put key in, no gauges, same as #2, van starts and continues to run
and all gauges come to life (this is the least frequent)

4. Driving along and lose power to the gauges. Van continues to run
without problem - just don't have any idea how fast I'm going.
Sometimes the gauges come back to life while I'm driving.

Usually if it won't run, as in #2, and I continue to try it again and
again (maybe 5 to 6 times) eventually when I turn the key nothing
happens - doesn't try to start, doesn't click, doesn't grind - NOTHING!
It doesn't seem to happen more or less when it rains; but it did occur
less frequently during the winter. Now that it is warming up it is
starting again.

Re: intermittent start problem '98 Caravan Sport Well everyone I am
glad to hear that my little dash bashing is getting everyone going
again. I took my cluster out of the car in April and had it repaired.
There were two problems first two bad diodes and the second was a
conection at the plug.

If the gauges come up the car will start. I can hit hard enough that it
works, my wife can't. If this works your printed circuit board of you
instument cluster has a short. The car will run without the cluster,
but if you have a factory alarm the starter cut off goes into effect or
the car computer thinks that the car is in gear.

Mine would also do the dash on / dash off while driving, but as you can
see from the posts it also had the starting proble, anyway...., back in
the beginning of October I went ahead and pulled the cluster out (very
simple, maybe took 15 min), on the back of the circuit board of the
cluster where the main connector solders on to the board there are
perhaps 12 solder connections for the plug pins, people had mentioned
to look for cracked or cold solders at those locations especially at
the black wire connections (there are two) I didnt find any cracked
solders however I decided to re-solder them anyway when I heated one of
the black wire pin connections the cold solder joint was exposed, for
all intents and purposes it was barely even making contact, it was more
of a dome of solder, I finished soldering it back up and reinstalled
the cluster, to date i have not had any repeats of either the starting
or on / off of the cluster (knock on wood).

 

I was sitting in the van waiting for someone to come and pick me up for over
an hour, during that whole time, the emergency flashers were on.......

As a rule, my understanding is that they drain alot of power from your
battery, so if it was bad enough for the van to just up and die, I don't
think they'd have run for an hour.

David

 

My son had a similar problem with his (my old) 94 Concorde-just up and
died on the interstate. Having looked under the hood a few weeks
before, I warned him that the battery terminals were corroded and
needed attention badly. It was my first reaction that this is what had
caused his problem (engine died, wouldn't turn over or even click the
solenoid but lights worked). He was skeptical but we had AAA tow it
home, we put new cable ends on, cleaned the battery terminals and it
fired right up. It was obvious that the battery was weak and he
replaced it about a week later. Hope it's that simple for you.

 

I have EXACTLY the same symptoms that
detailed in the post from Wed, Jun 28 2006 7:18 pm
in my wife's 98 T&C LXi
Right down to the same four modes of operation/failure and that fact
that my wife can hit the dash board hard enough to fix it!

In fact, I think it is starting to hurt my hand more because I have to
hit it harder then when the problem started.

The first time we noticed it was a couple of years ago, when mode 4
(gauges quit, still runs) happened twice on a long trip.

Several weeks later, mode 2 (no gauges, starts and quits) started to
happen to my wife. This would usually fix it self if it sat long
enough. Was sometimes acompanied by problem mentioned after #4 (mode
5?) where gauges don't work and it just clicks once when you try to
start it. (Please, no "you have a dead/weak battery" comments. I don't,
I've checked it!)

Then it seemed to disappear for a while (not sure but I think it is
worse in the summer. Heat / Humidity.)

It is happening a lot lately. Almost always the "No gauges, click only"
mode and it doesn't fix itself any more. I've tried diconnecting
battery / the 10 amp IOD fuse / and doing both. Nothing seems to fix it
now but hitting the top of the dash board.

I used to think just to the right of the gas gauge worked best, but I'm
not sure of that anymore.

I think I will try removing the cluster and look for cracked solder
joints. I may have cracked a few myself by hitting.

I'm really sick of Chrysler vans. I had an new 92 Caravan that had
wierd gauge problems (all gauges quit power locks would work one way
but not the other) that were related to some control module. Started
when it was still in warranty. They "claimed" they replaced 2
solenoids. The first time it happened out of warranty, I found that
just disconnecting the battery would re-boot it and it would work.

We got this T&C from my wife's father, for very good price, but it has
been nothing but trouble.

 

It's not too difficult to remove the instrument cluster. Fractured
solder joints can be hard to see. I use a 10x magnifier and bright
light- I'll walk outside and use sunlight, for example. You're looking
for a gray ring around a pin. Safest thing to do is just resolder all
the connector pins.

If you do the soldering yourself be sure to use ELECTRONIC solder, not
PLUMBING solder. Let the iron warm up, then tin it by melting a little
solder on the tip. Wipe off any excess. You do want to leave a little
liquid solder on the tip to help transfer heat to the circuit board.
Touch the iron to the pad on the board you want to solder, add solder
to the point where the iron is touching the board, not to the iron.
This should just take a few seconds. You want the original solder to
melt completely and flow smoothly, but not heat too long or glob too
much solder on.
Let us know if it works.
-Paul

 

I just finshed.

I couldn't see anything wrong until I borrowed my eight year old's bug
magnifing glass. (I have know idea what power it is.) But with it I
could see a crack on one of the solder pins.

Just to calirfy, it was one of the pins were the wiring harness plugs
into the complete speedometer and gauge cluster. The pins stick out the
back of the assembly, which actually faces forward in the car when it
is mounted in the dash.

I got the assembly out and removed the piece of cardboard proctecting
the circuit board.

Then I removed the circuit board. It a was connected to the gauges with
a flat cable and 12 pins that stick out the back of the gauges (4 for
each gauge).

Once it was off, looking at the back of the circuit board, the pin with
the cracked solder was the far right one one the bottom row.

I don't do a lot of soldering and don't have real good equipment so I
settled for just redoing that one pin.

I put it all back together, and it works. I ran the diag and got the
999.

Of course, just taking it apart and putting it back together might have
fixed. If it fails again I will update this thread.

If that happens, I was thinking I could just try a new cluster from a
junkyard, because I believe the odometer reading is stored in the BCM.

Thanks for the help.

 

You're welcome. I'm pretty sure you got it, since it was mechanically
intermittant (whacking the dash would fix the problem) AND you found a
cracked solder joint.

-Paul