Dodge Caravan 2002 Transmission Problem

Or cat in a Kit-Kat, or dog in hot dogs... uh, nevermind. Not so sure about that last one....

If it were just the main gear clutches at issue, then what you say might be true. However, those transmissions modulate the torque-convertor lockup clutch and spend a fair amount of time with it in a partial-slip mode (in 2nd, 3rd, and 4th gears, with 100% lock only occurring in 3rd and 4th). Its the torque convertor clutch and operating it in partial lock mode that demands special fluid characteristics.

Thanks Marsh.

As usual the dealer did not find anything wrong (and now they can not find the Computer logger cable).

This is false. In the 1970s they said GM car quality wasn't inferior to that of Japanese vehicles (based on what their reader surveys); when they first tested the Corolla and Nova they gave the edge to the Nova for handling (the Corolla lacked an anti-sway bar), and when they first tested the Toyota Tacome pickup they ranked it last and stated on their cover, "Ford Beats Toyota." I doubt a publication with an anti-American bias would do any of this. They have expressed opinions about vehicles, such as by calling interior materials cheap looking, but such opinions don't affect their scoring.

Those comments most certainly affect the perceptions of their readers and that was my point. I wasn't talking about their scoring.

Matt

Actually, I don't believe they were ever what they were once perceived to be. Through high school and college, I worked weekends and holiday in radio and TV repair. CR was a cheerleader for some of the absolute worst sets that man has ever put together. Whether they were actively dishonest, incompetent, or just were looking very superficially at the equipment, their advice was pure caca.

They've always rated according to performance, not reliability, unless samples failed during testing, so old GEs weren't penalized for their riveted circuit boards or Zeniths for their bad x-ray safety capacitors. On the other hand they went from rating Motorola Quasar highly one year to poorly the next year, and apparently they were right because for the newer model Motorola issued about 30 design changes, almost all related to grounding to eliminate power supply interference.

I still have a Sears (Sanyo) TV from the 1970s that was rated highly. It's needed some new electrolytic capacitors, the wire wraps had to be soldered, the convergence rings crumbled (I was going to toss it because of that, but my dog spotted some new ones on the ground during a walk), and I had to patch holes eroded into the tuner contacts.

Why would they employ so many electrical engineers just for superficial testing?

Late sixties and early seventies, their main criterion for television quality was pincushion distortion. Minor things like cost of service and frequency of failure apparently weren't considered.

Nowadays, computer people tend to know what pincushion is. But back then, I did my own informal surveys. Even when I showed the customers the pincushion distortion on their own television sets, they couldn't spot it. So the smart people listened to us and bought Zeniths and hardly ever saw us again, and the CR faithful ignored us and bought Admiral and Motorola and saw us about 3 times a year for a couple hundred dollars a year.

On major purchases I'll call a friend who subscribes to CR, and if my choice of product is high in their list I re-evaluate.

Geez, you sure hold a grudge a long time............................

It's not a grudge. I don't know what their criteria are today, but they still somehow manage to pick some pretty bad electronics for their top spots. Doesn't just hold true for electronic stuff, either.