First, about a month ago, I took my 96 GC in to have the recall work done on it involving the clock spring, fuel rail and something else pertaining to the gas tank, not really sure. Anyway, yesterday my wife was driving, and from a dead stop, she atried to accelerate and the van lunged a couple times, like steping on and off the gas, then it dies. It will NOT start up again. I went to look at it and see if maybe the fuel filter might have been clogged, or take the "recieve" side of the filters hose off to see if the fuel pump was even sending gas to the engine. I could never find the damn thing, the filter that is.
Anyway, my questions are, A) Where is the fuel filter located? and B) Could it be something the dealership did to cause my problem?
I hope it is the latter, but I am scared it sounds a lot like another car I had that the timing belt broke on. If it IS the timing belt, how much should I expect to pay at a neighborhood repair shop as apposed to the dealership?
This is a pretty bad situation as it is the only vehicle available to move the kids back and forth to school, so ANY help is VERY appreciated. Thankyou.

 

Well get this, my wife called and told the dealership I thought that maybe what they had done to "fix" my van may have actually messed it up. So I had it towed to the dealership and said to " check what they did and see if it was the problem". If it was not, I would pay for the tow and get someone else to fix it. After about 12 hours and several calls and a lot of "they are not here, it's not done yet" and eventually "the guy is gone for the day", she gets a call from the same guy who was "gone for the day" 45 minutes later saying "boy you sure are hard to get ahold of." What?
So here is what they said the problem was: Ignition coil, terminal bins, the battery and that it needed platinum plugs. Does this sound like they checked "only" what they worked on? NO! And the price $619.00 plus tax. WOW. And then he told her that this was just to get it running again and there could possibly be more problems. Once again WOW!! Don't you just love dealerships?

 

My guess is that the fuel pump went bad. One test is to turn the ignition on and see if you can hear a buzzing noise, this will be the fuel pump building up pressure. You have to drop the tank to change the pump. If your handy with working on vehicles, it can be done in a few hours.

Sounds like the dealership is taking you across. I had to replace the ignition coil, but it was a slow failure, not instanteous like you are describing. They will probably keep throwing parts at it until it is fixed and keep sending you the bill.

 

Well I talked with the guy at Dodge today myself and he said the fuel pump, rail and all that stuff was fine. The problem was the ignition coil went bad, and the wife person smelled gas because it was flooding the cylinders. He also said the van has Platinum plugs..... do factories ship mini-vans with Plat plugs? If not, then they can't be too terribly old, the van has 113,000 miles. Also, he is charging me 75 bucks for a diagnostics check, only he never told me about the oxygen sensor that I know needs replacing....strange huh? I am going to bring that up when they hand me the bill for the diag. and the towing. Thanks.

 

It sounds like the "dealer" is screwing you.Ignition coils can go bad instantly but it's rare.They would start with a miss in one or more cylinders.
"Terminal Bins???" never heard of that one.
The battery won't just cause the engine to shut down,it will keep it from starting but that's all.
Platinum spark plugs are nice to have but really not necessary.Regular plugs will last 50,000 miles before they need to be replaced.You might want to clean and regap somewhere in there also.
Take it to a reputable shop.You did have reputable shop chosen beforehand didn't you???
To ward off problems like this in the future,get a Haynes or Chilton shop manual.These can be purchased at several auto parts stores and can help you find things in the strange places the manufacturers hide them.The cost is usually around $20,,,money well spent.

 

'95 is when they started shipping them out with Platinum plugs

-greg