I'm totally new here, so please bear with me! We just purchased a 2010 Dodge Grand Caravan Hero. So far, it's not been my hero!! It had 18,000 miles on it when we purchased it. The day after we bought it, we realized that something was wrong with the brakes or rotors. Going down hill the whole van would shake like crazy when we applied the brakes. We took it in and the re-surfaced the front rotors at no cost to us. A little disgruntled about it seeing that it doesn't even have 20,000 miles on it, but hey.

So now, when we are driving along when it shifts from 2nd to 3rd only, there is a major hesitation before it grabs into 3rd. You can feel it and hear it. My passengers even noticed. This is scary to me! The other issue is that when you go from forward to reverse or vice versa, SOMETIMES it will BANG terribly! The whole van lurches. It almost reminds me of if you aren't completely stopped and go to switch gears...but trust me...I'm totally stopped! The other thing is when I'm actually in reverse and going up a hill, the whole van is totally spastic and jerks all over. Again, that doesn't happen all of the time but sometimes!

Any advice? It's under warranty and is scheduled to go in on Monday, but I'm totally bothered We traded our Fusion in on the van and were looking at upgrading. Our Fusion had 85,000 miles on it and the only real issue was replacing a tire pressure sensor. So far I'm not impressed and it seems as though we have downgraded. If I could, I would just happily take my car back! Feeling frustrated and regretting this

 

new tranny !

Did you do a test drive on the car before you purchased, or did they tell you, dont worry, we';; have everything fixed before you take it..

only because I had that on a few dealers.

At least you have a w'tee, take it back, say your unhappy, REALLY kick off, and get the MAIN manager, if its a dodge dealership say you will be putting a complaint into dodge as a complaint.

may or may not help

good luck

 

Well, did you test drove it before purchase? We get a lot of complaint about the trans shift "differently" compare to their previous vehicle. But we have the customer test drive another Van, they accepted the fact that this is how the van drive.

Does you Van have "ECO" modes? if it does, take it off. Eco mode makes the van skip shifts, which feels almost like someone is learning how to drive a Manual trans.

 

We did test drive it and it didn't do that when we drove it. We also tested a 2011 and didn't notice the trans shift like that. We took it in to our garage because I trust them. They didnt touch it as I don't want to void the warranty but they said nothing showed up and its the way its supposed to be. Totally not happy with it but what can you do...we thought about trading it and just taking a hit but that thought depresses me when I think of losing the $$. You win some and lose some. This might be a loss. I don't believe ours has the Eco mode. How do you tell?

 

And of course when my garage looked at it thw stinking thing didn't bang while shifting from park to drive or reverse and it didn't shimmy when it reversed. Go figure. It's scheduled to go into the dealership Monday. They offered my car back if I pay 1,000 outta my pocket for the battery they put in, inspection, detail, and key and mileage I put on the van. That or they would give me a brand new caravan, a decent trade on this van...it equals about the same. I don't know what we will do. Never had any issues when buying a car before. This has been frustrating Maybe I will keep it and see if I have to take it in several times for the same problem. I already contacted an attorney and in my state I do have options even though its a used. ugh. Lol.

 

Some of them display ECO on the cluster, some of them have a button with green leaf in the center stack. Some of them just don't have one at all, but still does the ECO mode automatically, which is pretty annoying.

I know for sure the 2011 have the button in the center stack for sure. If you turn Eco ON on a 2011, and drive it a certain way, the trans WILL BANG on 1st shift, because it skips 2nd gear and goes straight to 3rd. Try it.
Like you said, you win some, you lose some, we've all bought things we don't like before. Wait until more manufacturers start rolling out more Dual Clutch Trans, they shifts even worse to some people. Trade off is 10% higher Fuel economy.