New member saying hello.
 

Hello I'm Jamin, I'm new here.

I have a 2008 Dodge Grand Caravan 3.3L flex fuel (but I just use regular unleaded). I have 220k miles on it, and have owned it for the last 6 or 7 years. I think I got it with 68K miles on it.

Over those 6 or 7 years I progressively began to learn more and more about car maintenance and DIY mechanical stuff since my kids were approaching driving age. I now maintain all 5 of our vehicles, and of course mine sometimes suffers the least of attention. I'm hoping to keep this van alive as long as I can.

Jamin / Jammco

Welcome to DF!

Thank you for the welcome!

Over the 6+ years I've owned the van I have done the following on it:

Brakes all around, calipers (eventually all 4 have been replaced), rotors and pads, and I change the front pads every year (I use autozone pads with lifetime warranty so why not?)
Front passenger brake hose
Both Front Hub Assemblies
Both Front outer tie rods
Both Front swaybars
Both Front Strut Assemblies
Radiator
Battery (I think I'm on my second for the life I've had the car)
Rear wiper (it kept trying to clean the license plate for the longest time)
Plugs and wires
Fuel Filter
Regular Oil and Filter Changes
Rear brakelight at the top of the door (so ridiculous to get to)

Not too horrible.

Things that still need to be done to it:
Valve cover gaskets (I believe the rear one is leaking)
Change the transmission fluid (I have a thread inquiring about that)
Rust spots on the body I would like to address myself if possible (bottom right of tailgate, bottom of both front doors, and some spots appearing along the top of the windshield)
The heat shield between my muffler and the gas tank has come detached and just kind of sits stuck there between the two and rattling ever so often... not sure what to do about that one.
Rear A/C doesn't work, not sure what to do about that either.
Some lights on my center console don't work anymore, the ones that illuminate where you want the air to flow in the car, dash/floor/defrost, and fan speed. I guess it's a whole board with LED's so it's not a bulb that can be replaced... I haven't really even looked into that yet.
I have a cracked windshield from a big rock where the chip repair only spared it for a couple months until the weather got warm and spread the crack. With the rust dots above the windshield I'm worried I'll have rust issues that will prevent me from getting a windshield replaced by a windshield place... they may ask me to go to body shop instead... it just happened to my daughter and her 2002 Subaru Forester.

I've done a lot more work on my kids cars which have ranged from Jeeps, grand-ams, oldsmobiles, caravan sports, buick century, subaru's, and my wife's Rav4, and now her CRV. I've learned a LOT, but there is so much more to learn with each different vehicle.

Active cars I'm maintaining:
08 Dodge Grand Caravan (mine)
11 Honda CRV AWD (wife's)
98 Buick Century (daughter's)
02 Subaru Forester (daughter's)
89 Oldsmobile 88 (son's)