Do Chrysler Minivans last a long time?

This is not entirely true. Lots of people throw away things that are not used up. I have mentioned here a few times that I put over a hundred thousand miles on a particular 1990 caravan without experiencing problems. I paid $200 for that one. I was sorry to see it go, because it still ran great, but I figured it was time to get a new one when the odometer said 275,000. Right now I'm driving a 1989 Honda that I paid $400 for. New struts, new water temperature sensor, and a new exhaust pipe, and it runs like new. Who knows how long a Honda will run.... The nicest one I ever bought was a 1996 Caravan that my wife drove. That was a really pretty van, and it drove great, too. When I got my paperwork from the auction company I found out that it was a donated vehicle. I'm sure those folks didn't donate it just because it was a worn out piece of crap. I bought it for $600 and sold it for $1400 a year and a half later.

As far as I can tell, there are three common circumstances under which vehicles come to that particular auction. A lot of them are fleet vehicles (rental, contractors, or police/municipal) being sold at ten years of age or 100,000 miles. Another large portion are donated. And the other significant group are sold by dealers who don't want to have the same old cars on their lot month after month, regardless of whether there's anything wrong with the vehicle or not. The dealers get cars by trading with other dealers, or from trade-ins, which are usually traded in just because the customer wanted something newer. Looking around the lot, I get the impression that only 5% or less are just junk. I figure that these are the ones that come from individuals who are tired of fixing stuff, in other words mostly the donated ones. Usually there is one major problem that was the straw that broke the camel's back, such as a blown radiator or a bad transmission. You will rarely see a non-runner with more than one big problem.

I also don't believe that you can assume that drivers of cheap vehicles don't treat them well. You could also say that the guy with a lot of money will buy an expensive car and not care what happens to it. Neither one is necessarily true. You can usually tell when you look at the cars whether they have been well cared for or not. For instance, I can always tell when somebody pulled the cap off the radiator and topped it off with bright green antifreeze, or if they pressure washed under the hood yesterday, but the rest of the car looks like somebody has been beating the hell out of it. These things are obvious. I couldn't help but notice that my Honda had a half quart of Mobil 1 oil in the trunk, with a mark where the bottle had ridden there for lots of miles. I figured that was a good thing. Turns out I guessed right. The engine is in great shape and I haven't had to add oil even after driving it

4,000 miles. On the other end of the spectrum was a Caravan I saw last summer. It was full of dog hair, there was spilled soda everywhere, lots of little doors and handles were broken and held with tape or rubber bands, and there was a bottle of Dexron next to the driver's seat. No, I didn't bid on it.

You think like a mechanic. Most folks just want a shiny new car, and they'll get rid of a good used car without even thinking about it because they keep the same easy payment. There are tons of good deals out there. Sure, sometimes I get stuck with a bad transmission, but overall I'm doing pretty well. I always figure that when I pay $300 for a vehicle I won't be sad if it simply burns to a crisp on the side of the road next week. Most of my vehicles last a good long time. I'm way ahead of the guy who pays $300 every month.

What sort of top-end maintenance would you mean? The valves need special care? You're not referring to ordinary "tune-up" measures like plugs, wires, and PCV things?

I think that 1994 marked the year that the valves were hardened and the oil burning problems were eliminated. This is what a parts guy at the dealer told me. Or something to this effect. I have, so far, touch wood, found this to be so at 199,300 miles or so.

Does someone have a 1994 or newer 3.0 that does smoke? I recall reading a work-around that some had developed concerning this in one of the support groups like allpar.com concerning older 3.0 engines which were supposedly notorious for this burning of oil.

I asked about this in another post but I'll ask here since it will be specifically just about this issue.

What top-end maintenance did you mean? Something to do with the valves? Or something to do plugs, wires, PCV valves, distributor, and so on?

PCV system is problem-prone, and the rings are overly prone to sticking.

Erm...exhaust valves have been hardened since 1972, in all engines from all makers. Hardening has absolutely nothing to do with the 3.0's problems.

Yeah, and the A604 was "fixed". The oil burning problem was reduced, but not eliminated, in 1994.

I see 'em all the time on the roads around here.

Er..."supposedly"?

The "workaround" involves putting a band-aid on Mitsubishi's halfassed engineering by installing snap ring retainers under the valve guides to keep them from falling down. And new valve stem seals better than the originals.

No argument there, but this is part of why SUVs are so popular too.

You have to admit, that post was very clear! Heh.

Me personally, I never heard of any of the old torqueflights going any great distance. I can offer no anecdotes at all about the superior engineering of Chrysler, or how I drove one 400,000 miles, or all the fine people at Kokomo, or wherever they came from. Newer ones, yes.

Ummm...so you're saying you think the *newer* Chrysler transmissions are better than the *older* ones?

Put down the crackpipe, man.

Hard to beat an old 727 or 924. The single pump 904 and 707? were not bad either, but could not be safely flat towed or push started.

The current crop, although smoother shifting, and arguably more efficient when working properly, do suffer reliability wise. My '63 Valiant 6 went close to 200,000 miles with no tranny trouble before I sold it - and I thrashed the living dailights out of that car with 200+HP. My '69 Dart went well over 200,000 before I sold it - and had no tranny trouble. I scrambled a diff - but that was pure stupidity on my part.

I think a lot of this is due to FWD, though. They basically had to take the existing RWD transmissions and fold them in half, and the gears in the differential are a lot smaller than the old RWD differentials, that's one result. The converters they made smaller and thinner, the transmission body was shorter so the gears are smaller. And all these trans designs had to be cooked up from scratch when FWD came along, and they didn't have the years of experience behind them when designing them. Just look at the history of changes and internal design changes in the Ultradrive/A604/41TE, read through the Chrysler manual and it's change after change after change for no other reason than to strengthen internal parts. Sure there's been firmware changes in the controller but just as many if not more hard parts redesigned.

The only thing the FWD gave us in terms of reliability was removing the driveline and u-joints. But u-joints in a drive line aren't high-failure items anyway, and we got CV axle shafts in exchange which are worse in the reliability game.

Ted

Joe wrote: .

Hmm.... Lets see what we've had in the family over the past 40 years or so transmission-wise:

1966 Satellite (Chrysler A-727)- about 150,000 miles (sold) 1973 Satellite (A-904) First transmission went 200k miles, second 240k (so far, still going) 1966 Polara (A-727) first transmission went 230,000 miles 1974 Dart (A-904) 160,000 miles (sold) 1978 Horizon (A-whateveritwas) don't ask-, it sucked. 3 trannies in 110,000 miles, including one where the differential section locked up... briefly... at 60 mph. Convinced me that front-drives suck. 1983 Gran Fury (A-998) 210,000 miles (sold, working fine) 1992 Dakota 5.2 (A-518) 215,000 miles and still going 1993 Vision TSi (42LE) 150,000 miles (leaking front seal) still going on rebuild at 221,000 miles. Convinced me that maybe not ALL front-drives suck...

Brands X, Y, Z in the same time:

1968 Ford Ranchero (C4) 190,000 miles (sold, slipping a little) 1974 Mercury Comet (C4) about 160,000 miles (sold, working fine) 1984 Cadillac (TH200R4) 110,000 miles (sold, working fine)

And I left out my '69 Coronet R/T (727) because I have *no* idea what was done to it before I got it. It does still have the numbers-matching transmission, but I had to go through it pretty extensively to get rid of all the "speed tricks" (boogering up, actually) that had been done.

Depends on what you mean by old. In any case, remember driving a taxi at night during college. On a long, narrow bridge no less the thing stopped. Apparently for some unknown reason, Chrysler could not design a tranny that could run without transmission oil. Can you believe that?

So the tow truck came. Dumped 2 quarts or more of oil into the tranny. No problem. Taxi ran fine. I expected it to burn up if it had so little oil it stopped running.

And yes those vehicles probably hit 400,000 miles easily. Never heard of the tranny being the problem with the slant six. Maybe with the bigger engines. Even the slant six could run on oil way short. I would sometimes fill mine up when the knocking got so loud that I could not ignore it. Imagine trying that with a modern, front-wheel drive engine? I would be afraid to even be a quart low for a short time let alone until I heard ominous knocking from the poor, abused engine.

Funny, I would hear this deep thump, thump thump. And slowly the brain would say to me, time to put some oil into the slant six.

Nope, not with them, either. The guy who said that Chrysler's recent transmissions are more durable than their old ones is high on glue.

Dan,

Taken here without the original context describing/dating the term "their old ones" the above statement is indeed true. My 1996, 1999, and 2001

4-speed transmissions have all proven more durable than my 1990 4-speed which went South and required replacement at 48K miles. To clarify, as I recall the OP was suggesting the 2005/2006 4-speed electronic automatic transmissions were more durable than the 3-speed auto transmissions of the 60's and 70's.

Bob

Sure, but the original guy was comparing the '60s-'70s Torqueflite A904 and A727 to the '90s-'00s FWD units and claiming that the old ones didn't last as long as the new ones.

Which is complete crap.

Uh, can I tell you a real life story based on a sample of one? I've probably told this before. I was with my buddy when he was complaining that his newly rebuilt tranny for $2000 was acting up, after only a few days!

He was literally using Forward as a brake in Reverse. I tried to gently suggest to him that these trannies are not known for taking that kind of abuse. They can have enough problems as it is. I think his vehicle was 1992. I'm pretty sure with his trim line he had the A604 tranny.

I just could not believe that someone could abuse a tranny. We won't mention flooring the newly rebuilt tranny even :) And the fellow is a mechanic! [but not a car mechanic but he should know better.]