Three problems related to engine and engine cooling have been reported for the 2004 Dodge Grand Caravan. The most recently reported issues are listed below. Please also check out the statistics and reliability analysis of the 2004 Dodge Grand Caravan based on all problems reported for the 2004 Grand Caravan.
The contact owns a 2004 Dodge Grand Caravan. The contact was driving 15 mph when the smell of burned rubber emitted inside of the vehicle and flames were visible from under the hood. In addition, the head lights failed to illuminate intermittently. The vehicle was destroyed and the fire was extinguished. The vehicle was taken to the dealer but not repaired. The cause of the failure was unknown. The manufacturer was not contacted. The vehicle was not repaired and the VIN was unavailable. The failure and the current mileages were 121,000.
After taking on gas, engine will sometimes stumble and most of the time quit running. Tried not over filling it and it still will just die sometime after taking on gas. On two occasions, it did this after hitting highway speeds. It would suddenly lose power and you had to pull off the road. It would normally start back up and have no more problems until next fill up. Because of this, we don't fill up and hit the road. We drive around before driving at highway speeds. Once, it died in front of several cars and a big truck had to brake hard and swerve off the road. So far, there has not been any known accidents but feel it is a matter of time before someone gets hurt. The mechanic said it was something wrong with a valve in gas tank and that you can't buy the part. We don't loan our van to the kids anymore since my oldest daughter almost caused a wreck and almost got hit when the van lost power.
Since this date, after every fill up, the car will hesitate, backfire, and in many cases die. The car can be restarted, and then will operate with no difficulty. On one occurrance the backfire was so pronounced that it blew the air cleaner off, breaking all of the mounting clips. The car must be driven very carefully after a fill up due to this condition. You cannot rely on getting into heavy traffic due to the hesitation and frequency of the engine die out. I have taken this car in to the Dodge dealer on more than one occassion and they claim no knowkledge of the issue. I write this because there was an article in the kenosha news, dated Wednesday may 15th, 2013 which detailed 3 Chrysler, Dodge brand cars probed for this same issue. They mentioned only v8 engines, but I want to let someone know that this issue includes others such as my 3. 3l v6. I am sure that I am not the only one to experinece this problem.