My wife has been having issues with her caravan. the issues started with the van dying or stalling right after she starts it. It happened to me a couple times. The bigger issue happened today and a week or so ago. My wife was driving and the van stalled or died. the key was still in the on position. with the radio still working and such.

I seem to remember having the same issue or similar about a year ago and the van was still under an extended warranty. They had to replace the key tumbler and gave us a new key. Could this be the same issue? what else might cause this? We put in a new battery just before getting the new key tumbler.

thanks for any guidance.

 

Our van had stalling that was intermittent, until eventually the engine died on the highway. No power brakes or steering is not much fun in this heavy van, and I am so glad it wasn't the wife driving when it stalled on the highway. I was also glad the upcoming traffic light was green. A red light would have been a huge problem.

It was a bad EGR valve, and it never set any codes until it died for good (P0405) and had to be replaced. That's the 3.3L engine, 2008 T&C. If the valve dies stuck open, the engine won't idle. On the highway I had taken my foot off the gas pedal and the drop in revs was enough to stall the engine. The van hasn't stalled once since the EGR replacement. Prior, this van had a new ignition key module under warranty and it continued to stall afterwards.

Good luck.

 

Thanks for the reply and information. Did you have issues starting your van where it would stall right away? How many miles were on your T&C when you had the EGR replaced?

 

Yes, several times the van would start, then stall. Other stalls were on low speed corners, and at the time I never connected that to low rpm's and the EGR. Mileage was approx. 60K when the EGR died permanently and was replaced. I would say it caused very occasional stalling since about 25K miles.

 

Thanks again kallsop! The symptoms you describe are the same as we are having with our van. I am going to inspect the EGR valve today to see if it is just dirty. I will also plan on replacing it soon.

 

Good luck. It would be easy to remove the EGR, if the exhaust crossover pipe didn't route past its lower bolt If you don't have quite the right tool to get on the lower EGR bolt, loosen the crossover pipe and that should give you just enough space to get on the bolt. Even though the head size is small (8 or 9 or 10mm? I forget) it is going to take a lot of torque to get it off. I used my torque wrench which has about a 2 foot handle. PB Blaster aerosol comes in handy to prevent breaking off the bolt head.

 

Without the right tools, the lower bolt would be tough. It's time to invest in a 3/8" breaker bar which may set you back $15. They are shallow and have no head size to speak of compared to a ratchet, providing sufficient clearance with the exhaust crossover in the way. A shallow 3/8" breaker bar really comes in handy when working on serpentine accessory issues with front wheel drive. I bought mine for working on Corvette accessory drive. There are a number of bolts around the A/C, P/S and water pump on certain cars that are impossible to access without a 3/8" breaker bar, unless you have welding torches and like to make custom bends in your box end wrenches lol.

The craftsman 944363 3/8" breaker bar fits perfect. I just changed my egr

However I will caution you blubomber that a bad egr will always throw codes and check engine light will be ON. If the valve is sticking at all the computer will know it because it has very precise electronic feedback circuitry which monitors it's movement. If you don't have a service engine light illuminated and associated OBDII codes for EGR, I guarantee it's not a bad egr. Don't rely upon driving symptoms because there are hundreds of possible reasons for stalling.

 

I never got any codes until the EGR died for good, then one instance of CEL and P0405. Even then, I cleared the code and van would start and stall, no new codes. After the EGR replacement, no more stalling. YMMV!

EDIT - thanks for the info about the Craftsman breaker bar.

 

Good to know, thanks!

This can be explained. There was a TSB involving a flash update to PCM to address a tendency to throw EGR trouble codes when the EGR was only sticking a little bit but still performing acceptably. I think that TSB flash update basically turned the EGR monitoring feature off to avoid unnecessary dealer visits. I didn't get a PCM flash update, but I'm guessing you did. Any flash update will address this TSB. The EGR tracking error on my GC was very small but any momentary valve position error above about 30% threw a code. I have a real time laptop app that showed me this issue. I replaced the EGR so codes are no longer thrown (no service engine light). My old EGR was still working fairly good and the engine had no symptoms.

 

Great info, thanks. I don't recall which updates have been done, but basically, the van is current with dealer recommended updates. I have a OBDlink SX and ScanXL Professional but only used it to read the P0405 code, not to monitor anything.