I've been searching the forum too, but not striking much luck...

1998 Dodge Grand Caravan, 168K miles. Ran great until I spent 2.5 hrs in stop-n-go traffic (snowstorm). No overheating. Van ran the whole time but would occasionally miss - I noticed it really bad in defrost mode.

I got it home and parked it. Temps dipped below 12deg that night. Next day it wouldn't start. Just turned over, sputtered a bit and died. 3/4 tank of gas. Just had plugs, wires, fuel filter replaced and oil/filter changed a couple months prior to all this.

I waited a few days until it got around 50 and sunny and went to try again, I got it to start but had to keep the gas pedal depressed to the floor for probably 2 minutes until it idled on its own. It ran fine for a couple days after. Went to drive it this weekend and it started rough, took a minute to idle but then idled smoothly. If I give it gas above about 35MPH it backfires and I can hear it in the intake. It stutters and won't go much faster. I have to feather the gas.

I asked some co-workers and they seem to think it's possibly jumped time. No check engine light. Battery connections are good. Spark plug wires don't seem cracked.

Any other ideas ? I am probably going to just tinker with it in my garage since we bought a new 2010 Caravan. It's an excuse for me to buy new tools.

Any insight appreciated.

 

Welcome to DF
Unplug the knock sensor on the front side of the engine. There was or is a TSB for a misfire at times. What was found was the knock sensor would build up voltage and then spike an RFI signal to the ignition wire,causing a misfire. By unplugging the sensor will not cause the ck engine lite to go on.

 

Knock sensor appears to be unplugged and dangling from it's harness. It looks like somebody beat me to that one. I did check fuel pressure. With power on, 30psi. At idle: 49-50psi. Under load: 49-50psi. I suppose I can try the crank position sensor next ?

I drove it around again today. It idles fine and drives fine until I give it extra gas to get up a hill or get over 35mph. I can hear it backfiring in the exhaust and it doesn't seem to want to accelerate. The van jerks (like it's misfiring).

What else should I check for ? I have been reading the Chilton's manual on it, too.

Also, it's the 3.3L V6. I forgot to mention that in previous post.

Thanks in advance for any advice!

 

If youve got good spark and good fuel pressure and no trouble codes, then Id have to go with bad gas. It happens, and more often than you think. Id pop off the fuel filter and check that, then cycle they key to spray some in a glass jar to examine it. The fuel system will have a lot of pressure so be careful when you take off the filter. It will spray until the pressure is relieved. (or you could use your pressure gauge to relieve the pressure)

This happened to me a while back and I was stumped. I finally drained some gas out and it was a nasty brown color and didnt even smell like gas - it did a little but definitely not like it should have. I dropped the tank and cleaned it out, let it dry for a day then put it back on and put one gallon of fresh clean gas in. It ran perfectly fine after that. For a final test I put one gallon of the nasty stuff back in after driving it a bit, and sure enough, it wouldnt run more than a few seconds at a time. Put 5 gal of premium in then took it to the station for a full fillup to dilute the BS gas and never had an issue since.

This could easily NOT be your problem but since its free to check and only takes a few minutes, I suggest it.

 

I had the same problem turns out it was the MAP sensor, i replace the one on mine and now it runs like it did when i bought it