"To be fair, I didn't explain my point as well as I originally intended." There ya go. Thanks for filling in the blanks in the first post. Good info.

 

Thank you!

There is one quirk that the 41TE has that I wanted to give you a heads up on being that we are heading into the winter months. You might notice particularly when it is really cold out (below freezing) at times when you do a full but quick stop at a stop sign (meaning no waiting was needed for other cars) and press the throttle that the engine will rev and the transmission will suddenly lurch into gear. What this is the transmission was still in the process of getting to first gear I believe as a result of the transmission fluid being cold and thick. Every Chrysler product I have driven with this transmission and the very similar 42LE has done this since new. My mother forgets about this and complains about it every year. The tricks I have learned to resolve this is either to give the engine a minute or two of warm up time, slowing down more gradually to let it have the chance to change gears, or while I am slowing to stop manually put it in L around 10 miles per hour.

 

Thanks Tom. I have purchased from them before but I didn't even check to see if they had MOPAR parts.

 

Sweet link - that helps a bunch. Thanks a lot.

I lost the intake manifold gasket on my 02 Chevy. That was sometime back but maybe a result of crappy gasket design and/or coolant...

Then, the heater control/selector (vacuum operated) crapped out and ingested a bunch of junk in the vacuum lines, so the selector does not work. And... I had the dealer flush the coolant system because I lost heat in the truck. They must have gotten some junk flushed out because some heat came back. I have to wonder about the GM coolant!

 

Saw 2 technicians from the dealer at lunch today and pop-quizzed them on the transmission. They said they would service it with ATF-4 fluid - no flush, just drain and refill. I asked if I should change the fluid at 77k miles and they said "you're getting close."

That makes me think that if my van was serviced before they sold it, that they wouldn't have changed the fluid. A salesperson would have said, "hey Joe, give this van some service before we sell it." Joe then looks it over and says to himself, "hmm.. 77k miles... close, but not required yet." So van gets an oil change but not transmission fluid.

That's my thinking anyway. So it's on my checklist for sure, now.

Good news is I just put some nice tires on it and got to look at it while it was on the lift. Other than the CAT looking rusty, the underside looks great. Couldn't see any leaks or problems.

Was trying to determine if the transmission pan gasket was rubber or black RTV. Either way, it didn't look like it had been recently changed.

This shop is the only one I know of that I can look under my own vehicle. I may pay them to replace the fluid just because I can bring in the fluid and stand next to the vehicle and watch them do the entire job. If I don't do it myself, this is the next best thing...

 

A few of the later 3.8s are known for having an oil consumption issue. It doesn't affect all of them but until you get to know the engine in your van just keep an eye on the oil level, check it every fillup. A bad one can go through about half a litre per tank, that'll put you into dangerously low oil level territory in a hurry. Don't worry too much about it, but do check it frequently until you know that yours isn't one of the oil drinkers.

 

Watching this now and have read a lot about it. A family member has a 3.3 that eats oil. I just changed the oil (5-20 conventional) and filter yesterday so I'm not exactly sure how it has been over the last 1k miles. I'll watch now.

I read some threads and one I recall reading mentioned that the shop disassembled the engine and found that the rings were aligned, perhaps allowing oil to pass into the combustion process. Wonder how long the cat lasts on an oil eater? Thought I saw something on changing the PCV(?) valve as well as a possible solution.

However, I saw far more information about how Dodge says it's normal and saw a lot more people asking questions and not receiving answers.

I think the next step is to do a drain/refill of the transmission, including a new filter, but I need to do more research on the "retraining" process.