It amazes me reading the comments on this forum. Yes, our T&C has also been plagued by problems. Fortunately, none of them have been show stoppers, but all have been annoying.
Windshield wipers come on by themselves.
Fuel gauge shows tank is empty (intermittently) after a recent fill up. This causes the chime to come on and go off trying to let you know you are running out of gas. Right! :-P This would lead me to believe it is a fuel tank sensor or something being pinched when the tank is heavy.
Passenger side sliding door lock only operates in "lock" mode. Will not "unlock" electrically.
CD player volume control flaky. Intermittently plays writable CDs. Sometimes will not eject CD.
Intermittent total shutdown. Nothing works... nothing. No radio, no wipers, no doorlocks, no windows. But some electrical things DO work. This happens seldom.
Engine dies intermittently. Will be running fine then just quit. On the highway this feels like a jolting hiccup, and then it keeps running. Around town, the engine just dies and you have to stop, put it in park (or neutral) and re-start it. It usually restarts easily and just keeps going. It may not happen again till the following day. But it happens most every day once or twice. Funny thing... it seems to happen almost all the time at a particular stop sign. Damndest thing! A chain of events? I don't know.
The blower only works in the two upper speeds. The lower speeds quit working.
The spare tire will not turn loose. It lowers OK, but I cannot remove it.
If you have any input to the solutions to these problems please share them in this forum. There are so many repeat issues here that dealers should have fixes for, but do not.
The largest issue for me is the engine stalling. This keeps my wife thinking she would someday be stranded somewhere.
You won't find a more luxurious car in it's class. But the number of problems and shoddy repairs by Chrysler is criminal.
Our 1996 T&C does the same. The hiccups and restarting generally ocurred around microwave phone towers and at the "same" places. When it occurs look around for them. The dealership replaced the fuel pump and our problem went away. We are on our fourth A/C compressors and second transmission. Hmmm, oh yes, we are also on our fourth belt-tensioner with it presently squeaking louder each week. Other than all of this, we too have a love and hate relationship that just keeps us going.
We had the same problem with the windshield wipers coming on randomly. It was our battery dying. Once we replaced that the problem went away. our speedometer would also stop working every once and a while before we replaced the battery.
We also have had the dying-hiccup-restart problem with our 96 Town and Country. We inherited ours from my wife's parents as they wanted to get a more reliable vehicle. From the outset I suspected the fuel pump, from what I read this is common, and that solved the problem. Along with that, new sway bar bushings corrected the thumping in the front end and a new upper oxygen sensor corrected the "Service Engine Soon" light. I used the key on-off-on-off-on method to get the light to flash out code 21 (no oxy sensor votage change over time). It has been almost 2 years since and still fine. I have the stubborn radio buttons, the leaky A/C evaporator (gasp) which requires 134a every 3 monhs or so, and the phantom wipers / no cancel left turn signal which I have read is the failing multi-function switch on the column. I can live with those for now. My biggest problem with the van is that it loves to eat front brake pads. My father-in-law told me he had to have the front brakes replaced every 12,000 miles or so to which I replied You are being ripped off! Well, I'll eat my words on that one. I have experienced the same thing. I find that the front brakes wear fast, overheat easily if you have any kind of extended downhill to deal with and are intermittently squealy. The first set I had to put on was during my pre-state inspection self inspection- (I find doing this helps my pocket and my sanity). I got the two year pads from Auto Zone and was never really happy with them. They smelled hot after any kind of hill so I rebuilt the calipers thinking maybe I had a piston or slide hanging up and not releasing. No change, so I lived with it until they wore out. The set I just put on are ceramic composite and I was told they would be great on this vehicle by the counter guy at Advance Auto Parts. They are much better than the cheapo pads, but They still get hot too fast in my opinion. After all of this plus what I've read I conclude that the brakes in the 96 T&C are marginal for the size and weight of the van. If anyone has some hints or ideas to improve longevity or performance, I'd love to hear. Other than this biggie we've been happy with the van. I agree it is a high maintenance, quirky vehicle, but the ride is fantastic.
My advice would be you should have bought a chevy astro mini van instead. The 4.3 v6 and automatic transmission they put in those are just about indestructible.
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