A/C question 96 Grand Caravan

My 96 Grand Caravan 3.8L is in good shape and been well maintained,
currently with 170,000km. The evaporator was recently discovered to be
leaking and therefore in need of replacement. Comment from dealer is that I
may want to think before going ahead with the repair as they are pretty
confident that within the next year some other a/c component is very likely
fail also. In other words, once one component fails, there is a very high
probability that this will be followed by the condenser, compressor
etc.....all obviously expensive items and perhaps not worth the investment
for a 96 vehicle.

Have others experienced replacing the evaporator and then only to find that
other system parts needed replacement soon afterwards? Anybody just
replaced the evaporator and had no further problems until a long time later
or no further problems at all?

Thanks for your comments.

 

If they see that the system may have signs of fatigue or other evidence that
a problem may occur they are trying to save you money on costly repairs down
the road, If the vehicle you own is in bad shape they may be trying to tell
you that it isn't worth the repairs.
But to answer your question......when you repair the evaporating and get the
pressures up yes something else could develop a leak. The high side pressure
in the condenser and some related hoses could reach 300 psi.
But yes I have replaced many evaporators without a problem afterwards and I
have also informed owners that some other leaks could develop after the
repair is made.

Glenn Beasley
Chrysler Tech

 

I think that's typical dealer mentality - they think that all cars that are
over 10 years
old belong in the wrecking yards, probably so they can sell you a nice new
car.
But the reality is that anything over 10 years old the lifespan is
critically dependent
on maintainence.

It is quite possible to completely tear out and replace the engine an
transmission
and major power train components in most vehicles for about $6,000. If you
did that on a minivan that has never been in a collision, has immaculate
paint and
interior, you would get the equivalent of a $30,000 vehicle, in reliability
terms
at least, for $6.000. But if you did it on a minivan that had had the shit
beat out
of it, you would get the equivalent of a $1,000 vehicle for $6,000.

Dealers do not think this way as the vast majority of their customers seem
to
beat the shit out of 10 year old cars, I think.

With your van, the weak point is the transmission. Has it ever been
rebuilt? If
not and it is still on the original 96, then you are probably going to lose
the
trans sometime in the next few years. The 3.3 and 3.8L engine, by contrast,
is very strong and will keep on running if you keep oil in it.

Only you can really make this kind of call since only you really know the
maintainence history and how well it has been maintained. If this van
really is
pristine, and you would happily pay the $1500-$2000 for a trans rebuild,
then fix the evap core. Otherwise if you were thinking of in the next
few years of getting a new van, then you might seriously consider buying a
2005 model while they are still on sale, then giving your van a quick
topping
off with refrigerant, and selling your van through private sale now, while
it
still has some value left in it.

Ted

 

Very true.

Absolutely not. All of the problems I've had with my 96 GV, including
the problem that left me along-side the road twice (fuel pump), were not
related to the major drive train components. The engine and
transmission have been quite trouble-free. My problems have almost all
been electrical or body hardware, and replacing all of that along with
the engine and transmission would cost a lot more than $6,000.

Matt

 

If they see that the system may have signs of fatigue or other evidence that
a problem may occur they are trying to save you money on costly repairs down
the road, If the vehicle you own is in bad shape they may be trying to tell
you that it isn't worth the repairs.
But to answer your question......when you repair the evaporating and get the
pressures up yes something else could develop a leak. The high side pressure
in the condenser and some related hoses could reach 300 psi.
But yes I have replaced many evaporators without a problem afterwards and I
have also informed owners that some other leaks could develop after the
repair is made.

Glenn Beasley
Chrysler Tech

 

Body hardware leaves you stranded on the side of the road?

OK, you are right about the fuel pump, but a fuel pump is a wearable
item, and a really good preventative maintainence schedule would
have replacement of the fuel pump after a certain mileage on the
schedule. Also, people often forget that fuel is what cools the fuel
pump, and if you usually drive the vehicle until the gas guage is on
"E" then fill it up, that your shortening the life of the fuel pump. It's
much better to drive it then refill when it's on the last 1/3 of a tank.

The problem is that people think that maintainence on vehicles only
means replacing things that break. About the deepest they get into
a preventative maintainence would be to do a half-shaft replacement if
they see a torn CV boot. Hell, most people don't even replace O2
sensors after 100K miles, and that's a recommendation that you will
get from any manufacturer of these sensors.

But, a serious preventative maintainence schedule would replace
both axles after, say, 150k miles, even if they both look good, simply
because most of them split at least one boot within 20k of that time.
In fact, you would probably do a whole lot of parts replacements
at the same time on the schedule, to save labor costs. This is how they
do it with commercial airplanes. Granted, it may seem more expensive
but since your scheduling the replacements in advance, and you can do
a number of closely related ones in advance, and you can shop around
for pricing in advance, it is actually cheaper and a whole lot less
frustrating than waiting on the side of the road for a tow truck.

In any case, I probably used a bad example to make my point - keep
in mind the 96 GV was the first year of a major redesign on this
vehicle, thus there's a high probability of a lot of little stuff going
wrong.

Ted

 

I clearly said fuel pump. Having a hard time reading?

Matt

 

OK, then rewrite my original sentence to:

"major power train components and fuel pump in most vehicles for about
$6,300"

since you don't want to believe that a wearable moving part like a fuel
pump would ever be considered a preventative maintainence item, and
you completly ignored my explanation of what true maintainence on
a vehicle really is.

Happy now?

Let me explain a different way - you can choose to regularly replace
wearable components of your vehicle before they break down and
leave you stranded, but you might replace an item that has 3000-10000
miles of life left in it, so you lose that life.

Or you can wring every last mile out of every single part by replacing
none of the wearable parts until they are totally used up and break
down - you might get stranded, but by golly you got every mile possible
out of that alternator brush or that battery!!!

It's no secret that most of the US motoring public believes the right
way to do it is the second way, that is why AAA is so popular.

Ted

 

Right, I don't believe that every wearable moving part is a preventive
maintenance item. I don't change my engine or transmission before they
need to be changed either, nor do I change out a functioning fuel pump.

Almost always happy!

Yes, and you'll invest so much in the vehicle that it will be cheaper to
just buy a new one every 5-7 years.

Yep, that is the way to keep the costs down.

It is neither right nor wrong, but it is the least expensive way to own
and operate a car.


Matt

 

Modern transmissions (at least Chryslers) can be queried as to how close
they are to being worn out with any scan tool.

Let's see now. I think most people in this forum would agree that
your on borrowed time on a fuel pump after 200,000 miles. That is,
you know it's highly likely it's going to fail sometime after that and
your going to have to pay for it to be replaced. So, the smart thing
is to replace it at 200,000 miles and save the money of a
tow and the hassle of breaking down somewhere. Since your on
borrowed time with many other components in the car, replace
those too at the same time.

You seem to think that a fuel pump is like a light switch it either
works or it doesen't. This is a common misperception. A fuel
pump is like any movable part, it has a lifespan to it. A fuel pump
that has 100K miles on it is far more likely to fail than one that
has 10K miles on it. And a fuel pump with 200K on it is far more
likely to fail than one that has 100K on it.

Your logic is like "I'm not going to write a will as long as I'm still
alive because as long as I'm still alive I don't need a will"

That is what most people think, and it is a myth that originated in the
NorthEast because of the climate, and the use of salt on the roads,
historically car bodies had significant rust damage by then. And it
may still be true there. But, it's not the case elsewhere. Unless the
vehicle has major structural damage, like rust, or an accident, or it
has a known problem engine in it, or it has major paint damage, it is
cheaper to repair than to replace.

Cars all eventually do become too expensive to do anything other
than a complete and total restoration job costing in the $20-$50K
range. People still do these kinds of jobs with sports cars and other
classics, but otherwise that's not cost effective. But as long as the
car body is straight, the paint is good, and the interior doesen't
look like a herd of cats went wild inside, your still ahead to keep
them running.

Actually no it's not. The reason why is that if you do all the wearables
at the same time, the labor to do them is less than if you do them
individually at different times.

No. It is the most expensive way. The difference is that even though it
costs more, your paying the total a little at a time, instead of just all in
one lump sum.

Since in the US most people don't apparently know how to go about
saving money, this way of paying for things is preferred. But it is
fiscally stupid.

Ted

 

Mine failed at 162,000 so changing at 200,000 wasn't a good option.
I've know fuel pumps that failed at 20,000 miles. Are you going to
change yours every 10,000 to avoid a failure? If I'd have changed mine
every 50,000, I'd have wasted two perfectly good fuel pumps during the
life of my original. Even at 100K, I'd have sacrificed 62,000 miles of
usage. Sorry, but that simply isn't good economy as the labor to
replace my fuel pump was much less than the cost of the pump.

My fuel pump cost $394 and the labor to replace it was $60. So
replacing it at even 100,000 miles would have lost ~$150 of fuel pump
value. With expensive components like this, it is rarely good economy
to replace them prior to failure.

Well, my fuel pump did fail like a light switch. It worked fine one
minute and didn't the next.

The life of fuel pumps is all over the map. There is simply no
economical way to know when to replace a pump in anticidpation.

You analogies are even worse than your logic. A failed fuel pump is
easily replaced (at least on a minivan as the labor at the dealer was
only $60, which is about an hour at their rates) and you start all over
again. You don't get to buy a new life when you die so writing a will
is in no way comparable to a fuel pump. Did you even think for a second
before you wrote the above?

I live in the northeast. It is cheaper to repair than to replace up to
a point and only if the downtime for repair has no value to you.

And the other big problem is that you don't have a reliable way in most
cases to know when a part has only 3-10,000 miles left on it. My fuel
pump worked great right up to the point that it didn't work. Their is
no "life remaining" gauge on things like fuel pumps, alternators,
starters, etc. And my experience is that the standard deviation on the
failure statistics is very large. I've had starters fail with less than
50,000 miles and starterst have lasted 150,000. Same with alternators,
water pumps, etc. You'd have to replace them at very low mileages to
have any significant assurance of avoiding a failure and to do so would
be very much more expensive.

Matt