Never ceases to amaze me how one car in this house gets fixed, another goes down...
My mother's Caravan (I think it's a '96 or '97, at most a '98) has a new problem: seemingly at random while the car is on, every analog guage goes dead, every digital display on the dash wipes out and virtually every warning light comes on (oil, seatbelt, check engine, ABS, etc.). There's no change in the performance of the car though - no limp home mode, no rough running, you have have no spedo, tac, gas guage, etc.
It has been to the dealer twice. The first time they said there were all sorts of error codes on all 6 computers, and that tracking it down would be quite the task (aka expensive). They reset the codes, test-drove the car, and no problems. Got it back and no less than 24 hours later the same exact problem occurs. They've had it for 48 hours and said they'd reset the codes again and try test-driving it themselves - during a phone conversation with them earlier today, it was pretty clear they had not taken the vehicle out though. Still no sign of the ghost.
Needless to say this is something I'd prefer to track down myself rather than have them do it, but I'm a little stumped as to the source of the failure - it seems to me if there's a problem with one of the computers, the techs should have been able to spot that right away, or at the very least the performance of the car would have been affected. Same goes for a short or something I'd imagine.
Wondering if this could also be a problem from previous repairs; the ABS on the van has been serviced several times in the last year or so for problems, and the other month the gas tank sensor went bad and had to be replaced.
Anyone got some advice on where to begin looking?