I drive an 09 Dodge Grand Caravan SXT, 3.6, I'm at 148,000 miles. I've been having this problem for about 6 months, and we are stumped. My dash, headlights, radio, and brake lights flicker, sometimes going all the way out. My rpm goes down and back up, and it makes the ding sound each time.It continues to run fine, does not cut off. We've changed the battery and the alternator, but it did not fix the problem. Any advice on this issue? I am on a fixed income and the local dealership wants $95 an hour for a diagnostic, and they can't promise that the diagnostic will be done in an hour.

 

Bad ground somewhere. Finding it is going to be the fun part. And no, probably not in an hour either, unless it's a common failure.....

Moving this to the Caravan Section for ya. Welcome to DF!

 

I second the bad ground - start just by checking the other end(s) of the negative battery cable (some are connected to the block with a secondary connection to the body so if you have this setup pull both connections).

Remove it completely from the engine bay, make sure everything is clean (including the bolts) and that the wire is in tact. Hold the wire/cable 1 or 2 inches from the lug, then twist the lug at least 90 degrees - the insulation should twist with the lug - if it doesn’t the wire is broken. Make this check on each end of the cable.

There are miscellaneous ground wires/straps between the engine and body - these are mostly for redundancy but that doesn’t mean they can’t cause problems. Scan the engine bay for them and inspect as well (removal isn’t necessary unless you can see one is broken or damaged).

There is also a ground near the steering column that is shared by several of the components in the dash - I can’t tell for sure if it’s on the firewall or hooked to the steering column bracket so you’ll have to remove the panel underneath the column to look.

Also, if you’re not able to locate the source of the problem, you might want to check with some independent shops as their rates might be a little cheaper. You can always tell a shop (dealer or not) that you’re only going to pay for an hour so if they don’t figure it out by then, don’t go any further.