Hi my mom has a 1995 dodge grand caravan se 3.3L. Now here is what it does sometimes. When she is driving down the road the tranny shifts right down like into first gear. So when that happened she pulled off to the side of the road and put it in park and tried to take off agian down the road it would not shift. So couple days later i drove it and the same thing happened to me so i pulled off to the side of the road and put it in park and shut the engine down for like 5 min and started it back up and took off it shifted fine. I checked the transmission fluid its full and it doesnt look burnt or anything like that. Does anyone know what causes this? Has anyone else had this problem? Please let me know cause this is the only vehicle she has and would like to figure it out as soon as i can thanks for any of the help i can get!!

 

Until a Tehnician jumps in - you might consider running up to your local auto shop (i.e., AutoZone, etc.) and see if you have any computer codes (MIL) pointing to a possible problem (shift Solenoid, etc.)...

 

The transmission maybe going into what is called limp in or fail safe. You need to have the EATX/TCM controller checked for codes. On that year of van, when a transmission has a problem. Its doesn't turn the check engine light on.

 

What is fail safe mode?

 

Fail safe is the same term as limp in mode. Mitsubishi calls there transmission problem fail safe and chrysler calls it limp in mode. Just like the input and output sensors, mitsubishi calls them pulse gen 1 and 2. other term you may not hear that often is bulkhead, that is the same term as firewall.

 

I had the same issue with my 95 caravan se 3.3 auto and I changed the in put and output sensors they are located on the drivers side front of tranny have not had that problem for years now. hope this helps

 

I'm sure you knew what the codes were before replacing the sensors? But it does help if you posted the codes stored in the TCM/EATX.