My wife and i recently purchased a Grand Caravan SXT with the 3.8L V6 and 6 speed Auto tranny. The Van had about 38500 miles on it. Although we did test drive the van and did not notice any major issues, except a ticking issue, with the way the van shifted we noticed some things a few days later. The ticking noise ended up having to do with the exaust manifold. I did not get the details but when we got it back the noise was gone. When accelerating, the van will shift hard between 2nd and 3rd and 3rd and 4th. You can feel the van jerk a little at those times. Sometimes it is not as hard as others. Different levels of acceleration doesnt seem to make a difference. The dealer we bought it from has had it checked 3 times by the local dodge dealer and they say the tests come back normal. I am not able to check the tranny fluid myself because the 6 speeds come with a semi sealed (from how i understand it) transmission and there is not dip stick for me to look at. They have also said the tranny fluid level is fine. while the van was being checked during on of the times, they dealer loaned us a 2010 SXT and it did not have any of the same symptoms althoug it had 20,000 less miles on it.

Any ideas as to the cause? It seems that the dealer mechanic is hooking the tranny up to a computer and it comes back ok. Are there any other tests that can be done? the manufacturers warranty is expired but we did get an extended warranty that covers everything.

Thanks for any advice.

 

Welcome to DF
The 6 speed transmission doesn't shift as smooth as the 4 speed. It took me sometime to feel if the shifting was normal,Is the transmission making any grinding sounds after 2nd gear? If you don't hear any grinding sounds and the CVI's are within specs and no ck engine light. I would agree with the tech as being normal.

 

thanks for the welcome and reply!

The issue is most notable between 20 and 30 mph under normal acceleration when going from 1st to 2nd and 2nd to 3rd. I did say 4th in my original post but i found that is not the case. It is still noticable under hard acceleration, like getting on to the freeway, in the same gears but not as hard shifting. There is no unusual noise coming from the transmmission.

I am guessing that all the tests will show nothing, unless i have the transmission tore down, and it is something where we might have to wait for it to make noticable noise and/or fail completely.

 

Hi , If your van was used for towing it could have a down load ??? my thoughts . Bud

 

The van does not have a tow package on it. I would like to eventually like to get a tow package though.

Thanks for the reply.