2006 caravan brake problems?

No brake problems that I have seen, do you live in the mountains or drive in heavy city driving? How is the gas mileage? Do you drive with 2 feet ? These vans DO NOT have brake issues. And yes driving habits could have alot to do with it especially high speed braking. Brakes are only warranted for 12/12

Glenn Beasley Chrysler Tech

Joe, this sounds like the problem that I posted in Nov. of 2006:

Will a bad brake booster cause front disc pads to wear out in less than six months. The rear drum shoes are engaging while stopping and are less than 6 months old. I have had no problems with them. I have tried all types of disc pads from ceramic to heavy duty semi-matalic. I have also replaced both brake lines to the front calipers and cleaned and lubed the brake contact points. This is on a 2002 Plymouth voyager and I have had this problem since I purchased it new. Each time I replaced the discs pads I have the rotors turned or replaced. Help!

I ended up replacing the brake booster and master cylinder which included bleeding all four wheels. I have not had any problems since!

John Detke wrote:

Hi Glenn, I know you are the guy with experience but my luck with the brakes in my 2002 Caravan hasn't been good.

I had the rotors replaced under warranty at 5,000 miles due to vibration from warpage noticed from day one.

As I later discovered, the dealer only replaced ONE rotor.

At 11,000 I had the pads replaced under warranty.

With the warrantly over at 12,000 miles, I had to replace the pads again at 22,000.

At 40,000 miles I finally decided to NOT use OEM parts and put in organic pads in that lasted until 75,000 miles. I also trashed the OEM rotors and put in Chinese made rotors that were balanced better and ran truer than the OEM's. Did this work myself.

At 75,000K I installed ceramic pads that seem to wear less and dust the wheels less while still not causing excessive rotor wear.

My conclusions overall were that the OEM rotors and pads from Chrysler were junk. I've had much more brake wear in this 2002 Caravan than any other vehicle that I've owned..

One possibility is that my unit has the 2.4L 4-cyl engine. It seems to have minimal engine braking. When I back off the gas, the car slows minimally on a level surface. Low internal engine friction? Four cylinders not having much breaking effect on a relatively heavy vehicle?

It reminds me of the 1965 SAAB 3-cylinder 2-cycle wagon that I used to drive during work while in college. That darm car had "free-wheeling" to keep the engine from being starved for oil when you backed off on the gas (no gas, no lubrication since you used one quart of SAAB Premuim "M" oil for each 8 gallons of gas). The transmission declutched every time you backed off the gas pedal.

I had some white-knuckled moments while the car was going down hills loaded with color TV sets being picked up from the local hotel for servicing... Those vacuum tube sets were HEAVY!

I'd pull the underdash lever to lock out the freewheeling but then the boss would yell at me for the potential risk to the engine.

Doug

A bigger component than friction is the effect of the engine trying to act like an air compressor with the intake blocked off by the closed throttle body butterfly.

I remember those 3 cylinder Saabs and looking at one in the showroom - I wanted one at the time, but I was just a kid with no money of my own.

I had always heard that freewheeling clutches were illegal on road vehicles. Guess that was wrong info. That was kind of hard on the brakes.

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

My wife has a 2003 Sebring convertible that she drives in to the city every day , I have machined her rotors twice already due to her driving habits, The car has 56k on the original brake linings now, her Caravan before that got about 35K to each set of linings, My old 95 Ram 4X4 went thru front brakes about every 35K and now my 03 Durango is on the original linings with

Glenn

Was it actually due to warping? I thought that I had read (in the very newsgroup) about uneven deposition of friction material on the rotors causing light brake judder.

My experience has been that EVERY voyager/caravan that I have driven since '97 (my own plus rentals) has experienced this judder between 20-30k miles. Since this judder has always been intermittent, I have not believed it to be due to warping (I can't imagine rotors un-warping themselves!).

Last year, I replaced rotors and pads with Brembo/Akebono units and so far, the brakes have been very good.

Yep. People hear about rotor warpage so much that they barely hear you when you talk about uneven pad filming. Mechanics seem to be totally unaware of the possibility.

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

Yes, it was definitely warpage. I don't remember what the runout was but it was substantial.

I noticed it as soon as I drove the car home from the dealership with only 75 miles on it. I waited a bit before complaining thinking that it might have been poor breakin while the car was driven from one dealership to another, with resulting brake lining build up. It wasn't.

However, it only got worse and was never intermittent.

I've never had front end braking shudders since I've replaced the OEM rotors.

Doug