97 Grand Caravan with 3.8, front wheel drive. This intermittent problem is driving me nuts. At speeds around 35mph or so the van will stall. At highway speeds, 60, 65 it will buck or stumble or jerk once, but not stall. It's like if the transmission disengaged then re-engaged. Also at highway speed when it does this the speedo jumps up to around 80mph. And it will knock it out of cruise control if it's on.
There are no trouble codes after this happens. And it does not happen all the time. Once a day if that much.
Could be a missfire, Normally the speed sensors will set a fault and turn the lite on, maybe have the dealer/ garage connect the scan tool up and test drive it to see what is going on.
Try spraying the egine with water and test driving it, maybe a plug wire arcing?
My 3.3 acts like that when the injectors get dirty, or I have a bad batch of fuel. You could try adding some fuel system cleaner/injector cleaner. (Remember injector cleaner needs a few trips to work its magic)
Humm, would one cylinder missfire stall the engine? In fact I did have a bad plug wire a couple of years ago. It just caused a stumbling on accelleration.
The thing that bugs me, on the highway it bucked real hard, the speedo ran up around 80+mph, then all was fine. No codes set. I've been driving this van for a week now trying to get it to do what it does. So far it's only bucked at highway speeds once an stalled pulling into a parking spot once. That should give you some idea how intermittent this is. And never any codes set. I do have a scan tool, but it only reads generic OBDII codes.
I'm trying to avoid the dealer at all costs. I know what they will say... I need brakes and a new muffler... (which I don't)... LOL
Something else I'm remembering. It's done this for a while now, again intermittent and not so much after a good warmup. It seems that when comming off part open throttle and slowing down to a stop, the tranyy does not want to downshift. You can feel it bump/jerk when you do finally come to a complete stop. As if the lockup torq converter just won't let go or something. Would an bad VSS have an influence on this behavior?
What would happen if the lockup converter let go momentarilly on the highway?
Im with you avoid them at all cost. They may have a better chance at fixing it, especially if they have to go inot the CVI's to see what the trans is doing
I'm having the same (if not very similar) issue with a 96 GC (3.3 V6 - 96,000 miles). This vehicle has been flawless since the day we bought it at 30000 miles. Now it's acting up. I suspect the transmission, but I'm hoping for a bad sensor somewhere or computer problem. I"m going in for service check next week to see what codes they find.
If you get an answer before I do, I'd like to hear from you
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