3.3 engine. High miles. Driving down the freeway, at operating temp, van downshifts hard. Few seconds later it corrects itself and shifts up. Another mile or 2, I lose drive. Engine still running, but trans doesn't engage. I manage to drift to the side of the freeway and call the "highway super heros" who tow me home, and stick the van in my garage. A day or 2 later, I decide to push it down to the parking strip in front of my garage. I figure with the van running, I'll have an easier time steering with the power steering. Only problem is, van won't roll in neutral with the engine on. No problem with engine off, but then, I don't have power steering. Ideas?
SOURCE: 2003 Dodge Grand Caravan Sport
You need to go to a transmission shop and have them diagnose this problem. It sounds like a bad TCM, Transmission Control Module, or a clogged transmission filter but they have the test equipment to make sure.
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Thank you for the suggestions. The van has better than 250k on it, but is in very good operating condition, minus the transmisson issue. To tow it to a shop and get a diagnosis is about $200. For about the same $'s, I can replace the tcm, park/neutral sensor, input vss and the output vss. I'm kinda leaning towards replacing the park/neutral 1st, see if there is a change, then the input vss and the output vss, and finally, the most expensive part, the tcm. I am somewhat resigned to it being mortally wounded, and am somewhat loath to dump $'s into it, but on the other hand,, approx $200 to verify that it's internal and not just the sensors and tcm seem to be, um, uh, a fair price? And just as an additional note, I have replaced the tranny filter and fluid every 10k religiously.
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