Eight problems related to brake electric antilock have been reported for the 1997 Chrysler Town & Country. The most recently reported issues are listed below.
The brakes locked up, which caused the vehicle to experience extended stopping distance.
This morning when I put the car in drive, I heard a loud constant squealing noise. I attempt to turn the steering wheel to the left, but the van took off striaght ahead and would not turn and crashed into a parked car, which was totalled afterwards. Although my foot was on the brakes at all times, my van continued to propel forward. It then knocked over a tree approx. 12 ft. Tall and finally stopped when it ran into a neighbors shrubs. Fortunately, no one was injured or walking in front of the van at the time or perhaps someone may have been killed. Upon investigation, there was visible skid marks from where my van was parked to where it finally stopped, which was over 60 feet away. Ironicallly, my van was still drivable after all the damaged it had done. I had it towed to a local Chrysler dealership, they conducted a test drive and found nothing out of the ordinary. I have serious reservation about ever driving my van again. If there have ever been any similiar complaints, please let me know. I can be contacted at 011 49 6202 29935 or email russobey@yahoo. Com.
Sudden acceleration of vehicle while foot on brake and about to put car in gear resulting in accident.
Consumer was traveling about 30- 35mph on the service ramp, she went to apply brakes, and there were no brakes, and no prior warning. In order to avoid hitting another vehicle, vehicle has deliberately crashed into metal barrier. Vehicle was totaled.
The rear brakes locked up while the vehicle was being driven. This caused the brakes to burn up and ruin all the rear components. The wipers would activate without being turned on. This would happen intermittently without warning. The dealer knew exactly what was needed to repair so I believe this is a factory defect they knew about.
Vehicle experiences a delayed stopping distance whenever brakes are applied. Vehicle taken to an independent shop, and informed consumer that problem was due to front brake rotors, being rusted/corroded and pitted.
As head of engineering development at temic automotive, n. A. , now owned by continental teves, I was involved in the investigations into hundreds of cases of 'thermal incidents' on abs controllers on nearly every program. The incidence was highest, on those vehicles with the greatest exposure of the connector to the elements. Our investigations showed that a direct battery to ground short would develop in the presence of moisture and contamination, and even a 'sealed' connector design would not prevent this. The highest failure rate was on the Chrysler minivan. An interim fix using a raychem gasket was employed, and even used as a silent recall fix on many customer vehicles. It is my opinion now, that this should have been a recallable issue, should such an direct short situation develop that it might lead to a vehicle fire. I am not aware of any vehicle fires directly traceable to this. I would think the probability would be very low, but I'm sure it is not zero. I think the actions taken, and the vehicles effected, and the lack of warranty coverage for a known defect in many customer cases should be investigated by NHTSA. The time period of interest would be from my 1997 up until 2000 or 2001. The main platforms effected would be Chrysler minivan, jeeps and Ford explorer.
While driving 65 mph consumer had to make a sudden stop, the vehicle continued to travel. Consumer depressed the brake pedal again . Consumer had to swerve to avoid an accident.