My dad has a 2001 Town and Country lx that is driving us nuts. It seems to run Great, then all of the sudden, it has all kinds of problems backfiring, running very rich. After a week of messing with it, we thought we had the problem solved. But today it fell on it's face again. Yesterday we removed all of the fuses in the fuse box, cleaned all of the terminals, then reinstalled them. It started running excellent! idles nice, has crisp clear throttle response. No black smoke out of the tail pipe. Took it down to the smog station to get emissions done, then it dies in line. After that it ran horrible and has the check engine light on again. When it is running great, I can feel a slight misfire, but the PCM doesn't detect it. When it runs bad (Now) it has trouble starting, runs very rich, has no throttle response what so ever. If we can get it to idle, as soon as you press the throttle, it backfires and pukes black smoke out of the tailpipe, then dies.

Any suggestions? The MIL codes we were getting were
P0108 Manifold Absolute Pressure/Barometric Pressure Circuit High Input
P0118 Engine Coolant Temperature Circuit High Input
P0122 Throttle Position Sensor/Switch A Circuit Low Input
P0204 Injector Circuit Malfunction - Cylinder 4
P1478 Battery Temp Sensor Volts Out of Limit


After pulling the fuses and cleaning them, we got just
P0108 Manifold Absolute Pressure/Barometric Pressure Circuit High Input

We replaced the MAP sensor then it ran good. It did have a slight misfire, but no MIL.

I'll have to get my scanner out to check the current codes, but i'd be willing to bet that all of the previous codes have returned.

Thanks for the help

Steve

 

With that many codes I would check all the power and ground circuits to the PCM first.
Is they any obvious corrosion on any of the wires? (Green fuzzy stuff)

 

After messing with this Van for a month, I think we've finally found the problem. The first thing we replaced was the rear O2 sensor. This was melted and sending out false signals. We tried the throttle position, MAP, Coil, plugs and wires, PCM, and cleaned the Throttle body. Every time we'd change something we'd get different symptoms. All of the original parts were reinstalled. The only solid code we got was for the MAP, so we changed that again. But it still threw MAP codes. Found that the sensor wire for the MAP was shorted to ground. So we ran an external wire from the sensor to the PCM. Now we were able to get it to run consistantly, but it had a miss at idle, and would backfire every once in a while. Since there was a problem with the MAP sensor wiring, we removed the entire engine wiring harness that this is what we found. The harness for the fuel injectors, MAP, and Cam positon sensor (I think it's the cam position sensor) was completely melted together.
(See attached pics) We're currently in the process of repairing the harness and rerouting the wiring away from the exhaust and power steering resivoir. The connector that had the most damage is directly behind the coil, closest to the dash side. It runs right by the exhaust and by the power steering resivoir. I'll update this again as I'm sure we aren't the only ones with wierd problems like this...


Steve

 

I would like to say thank you to this forum and the poster of this thread with photos.. After plugs, wires and a new coil, our 01 Caravan started acting weird.. Fouled plugs and host of other odd symptoms.. Many hours, calls, and checks till I found this thread.. After removing the wiring harness and soldering in new wires, replacing three more fouled plugs.. its back to running well with over 200K..

Thanks forum!!

Gordon

 

First I want to say thank you to this forum because I learned a lot from you by basically doityourself type of the thing.
My 2003 town and country was misfiring so bad and blowing white rich gas smoke then cuts off. I immediately thought it was spark plugs issue. I changed them but I kept having the problem. Then I went back to that harness the poster mentioned and I found the exact same issue as the poster's pictures. I scraped the old brittle wires and (isolated) retaped them temporarily just to see if this fixes my problem. Sure enough, the car ran immediately but now I have a rich white gas smoke coming out (but became lesser). the code I am reading was P0108 with an engine light on.

I am guessing that the wiring to the MAP sensor or the injectors might have some shorts or I could have faulty sensors which is causing this rich white mixturefrom the exhaust.

I need an advice but I am first going to scan through the rest of the wires especially those going to the manifold / temp sensor / injectors and to see if this fixes my problem. Basically pulling out the top portion so I can easily inspect for any shorts.

please advise

 

Welcome to DF
You may need to open the rest of the harness to find any other wires that maybe shorted.This has been a common problem with the minivans as of late.

 

hi i had the exact same problem for 2 weeks could not solve untill i opened the wire harness behind the coil it was a wonder the car ran at all the wires all melted together so i seperated them and taped the up now car run perfect thanks to the person that posted the problem !!

 

Thanks so much for a great forum, to norcalvp for posting this problem & solution with pics, and dodgehead for posting the location to find without completely removing the harness. My 01 T&c had me banging my head against the wall for over three weeks, and this was my exact problem as well.

 

I too have the same exact problem, I'm gonna give the harness a looksie and see what i find.

 

Yep that was the problem. Thanks norcalvp, you saved me big time on this one. All of the insulation on all 8 wires was melted and gummy.