I have a very strange problem w/ my 98 Grand Voyager/Caravan. About once every two or three weeks, the car will not start. This problem surfaced for the first time after I came back from a two week trip this summer, and it has since recurred 5 or 6 times.
Symptoms: I turn the key and the engine turns over and starts like normal, but the engine then abruptly shuts off after one or two seconds as if I had turned the car off manually (i.e. it doesn't sputter and die) I can repeat the above process five times or so, and then turning the ignition does not even induce the engine to turn over. However, all the electrical things in the car still work... windows, radio, AC, lights, etc...
What has worked: The first few times this happened, I was able to jump the car and get it going. This was a little curious because the problem didn't seem like a normal dead battery (because the car would start and run for a brief moment) However, jumping the battery does not make the car start anymore If I leave the car alone for a few hours or even a day, it will magically start like nothing was wrong Today, I had the problem come up, and so I removed the battery cables and cleaned the terminals, and the car started. I'm not confident that bad battery connections were the culprit and that the problem is fixed. Perhaps I reset something in the computer or alarm system?
Anybody have any ideas what is wrong? Somebody speculated that I may have an intermittent or malfunctioning ingnition switch. Someone else thought it could be related to the alarm system.
FYI, this is a 98 Grand Voyager w/ 3.3l V6
thanks in advance.
kev