We bought this van used for my wife's business and I'm trying to narrow down what sort of problems it has before going after something. If this isn't how you folks normally post problems, I apologize, but I troubleshoot network/servers for a living so I think in bullet points.

QUICK HISTORY:
- 115k miles

- 4 cylinder

- had the transmission replaced at 60k miles

- previous owner kept good care of it for the most part, good records, too.

On to the problems it had when we acquired it.

IDLING IN PARK:
- Sometimes rough idle, sometimes not.

- With the A/C on, the car idles much rougher.

WHILE DRIVING:
- Usually rough idle and hiccups when starting from a stop

- Seldom feel much difference while driving

- Stop at a light and it starts vibrating pretty badly

- Put in NEUTRAL and the shaking stops

- All of this is much more pronounced with the A/C on...tolerable with it off.

- A/C occasionally makes a clacking noise like someone with a screwdriver smacking a piece of metal. We turn it off and it stops. With or without the noise, the A/C always blows cold.

- Eventually I saw a check engine light come on when the hiccuping/hesitating got bad, with it changing to flashing when accelerating harder while it hiccuped/hesitated.

WHAT I DID / FOUND:
- Did the key dance and was told there was a cylinder missing and a small evap leak (before the flashing engine light)

- Unplugged the wires one at a time and reseated them...got better for a short while then back to problematic.

- One cylinder showed a very small amount of oil around the end of the tube leading to the spark plug...enough to clean off with less than a qtip lightly on the end of the tube.

- Checked the belt -- it seemed tight enough but needs to be replaced.

- There is one harness sitting unplugged in the engine compartment that apparently has nowhere to connect...I've even put the thing on ramps and looked from the underside. It's sitting right of the engine on the transmission and ties into the connector that goes to a round, bell-looking device connected to the right side of the engine.

Up to this point, it had started fine but the longer we have it the more it turns over before finally starting 10-15 seconds later. After a week or so of this, the battery wasn't happy.

- Later key dances showed the battery had been disconnected and multiple misfiring (after the flashing light) and, at one point, that the fuel was too lean and it was compensating for it.

- I disconnected the battery completely after another round of checking coil/spark wiring had it running smoother and because I was worried about the battery disconnect error code. Cleaned the terminals, checked the battery fluid level and re-attached the terminals securely.

- Later dash lights showed an airbag light that has not cleared.

- Put it on a desulfating setting on my charger and left it til it was happy.

- Charged it full and ran my chargers alternator test...checked out good and restarted it a few times and it was looking okay.

- A few days later it was dead and we heard the starter clicking. Battery was an Interstate 29 months old.

- New Interstate battery installed - still takes a while to start but eventually does.

- No longer see a reference to misfiring and has not mentioned fuel lean again. Does still show the typical P1684 for battery disconnected and airbag light stayed on.

- This tank of gas, I put Lucas fuel injector cleaner in to see if it helped since there have not been any more notifications of misfiring but the hiccups/hesitations remain.

MY THOUGHTS
- Coil/wires should still be throwing misfire errors, yes?

- The small amount of oil (what you would rub on a gasket on an oil filter) shouldn't cause issues this big IMO.

- Motor mounts could cause the shaking...I would think that shaking could cause wire loosenings and the battery internals to have trouble.

- A/C obviously works the small engine/battery harder, but so hard that it causes this kind of issue? Doubt that.

Anything someone can help with would be greatly appreciated!

 

Welcome to DF
The valve cover maybe leaking oil down onto the spark plugs, causing a misfire. I would remove all the plugs and do a compression test. This would be a starting point.

 

Thanks for the thoughts and the welcome, master tech! Great community going here.

I thought fixing those seals around the spark plug area might be a route I would have to go down. Question, though: Would I still be getting the misfire notification? I haven't seen any misfire codes since the battery charge a week ago, including with the new battery.

Is a compression test something I can do or will I need to take it to someone?

The Lucas injector cleaner seems to have done some good...I'm not seeing the hiccup/hesitation while driving, but it still does the intense vibration at a light and it still gets better when I turn off the A/C and/or when I shift it to neutral. Overall, very little hesitation unless it is vibrating heavily like at a stop and sometimes not even then.

As for the starting, I've found if I turn it over for 3 secs, stop and then turn it over again, it starts on the second turn.

 

Also, according to the manual I found online, the harness connector sitting doing nothing is this: "SPEED CONTROL SERVO (GAS) - BLACK 4 WAY"

 

ttt ... anyone have information that can help, please?

 

As to the compression test. Yes its something you can do if you have a compression gauge set up. And the other, do you have speed control on the van? If you don't just tape it up and out of the way.

 

HayaBuddha
Registered User
Garage is empty, add now HayaBuddha, did you ever find out what was wrong with your van and how did you fix it? mine is doing thesame thing. Thanks for the pointers.

 

Did you ever found out what was wrong with Hayabuddha's van as to why it was shaking?

Thanks.

 

I did not find out what it was...don't have the ability to do the compression test myself and it's run, so I haven't paid anyone to do it.

I have since replaced the fuel filter because I was erroneously told that it was included in the fuel pump/sending unit and found out it was not. Replacing that has not changed the surging/stalling behavior at all.

If anyone has any thoughts on something I can try that doesn't involve compression testing, suggestions would be appreciated.

 

Thanks for your response. I am very surprised that we have similar symptons. Does that mean that the caravan eC behaves like that? i bought mine with 150K miles in an immaculate condition but for that occassional rough idling. Do any one know what could be wrong?