My friend has a Dodge Caravan and the weirdest method I have seen makes the transmission function normally again. When the transmission starts to act up - it will not switch into higher gears when accelerating, the speedometer goes dead and does not show the speed, and the vehicle will start to eventually stall and die. So what my buddy does is he will thoroughly water the right side of the engine with a hose all around in no specific place we can exactly pinpoint, which to my amazement rectifies the issue for a while - the transmission will start to switch the gears, the speedometer will function and show the proper speed, and the vehicle runs normally for a day or two again. I know this sounds really ghetto and weird - but it works as a band aid solution. I just don't know the totally weird logic behind it and what goes wrong and what needs to be done to replace whatever needs to be replaced? Please help?!

 

Those symptoms make me think vehicle speed sensor. I had a ford taurus have the VSS go out and the speedo/shift symptoms were the same. Maybe the water thing works because it's helping to bridge some type of electrical connection (since water is conductive).

I wouldn't recommend doing the water thing too much personally.

 

Didn't know Dodge made vans you have to water

Im guessing a bad connection somewhere. Good to get that fixed ASAP. No need to have the transmission computer short out and have to spend even more money.

May have to remove the air intake resonator to see the electrical connections. Thats if you have the 4 speed. 3 speed is hydraulic and no computers exept for a couple of sensors and nothing to do with shifting.

 

Remove the output speed sensor connector and pull on the wires at the connector. The wires like to break at or inside the connector. This has been a common problem as the vans get older.

 

the OSS is different from the VSS right?

 

The sensor that is near the bell housing is the input sensor and the one near the back of the transmission is the output sensor.