Rough Idle on 2004 Town & Country

B

Bob (2)

Usenet Archive
Joined
Apr 25, 2003
Messages
44
Reaction score
0
I just bought a 2004 T+C, and I've noticed that it has a rough idle when hot. The RPMs dip to about 550-600 from the normal 700-750. This is noticeable when you've been driving, and stop at a light. Trip to the dealer resulted in "nothing's wrong". Pushing further, I found out I'm not the only one complaining of this, but DC's opinion is that there's not a problem, and the vibration is within specs. They said a rep came by, and measured it (not on my T+C) with a "G meter", and proclaimed that there's only .0xxx g's of vibration, so - no problem. I had a 2001 Grand Caravan, same engine - 3.3 - and it never did this. I've had one occurance of a "squish" (didn't go immediately when I stepped on the gas) (They had some wierd fancy name for that) I've forced them (I hope) to call D-C, and raise my complaint. Has anyone else experienced this? How do I push this hard enough to get it fixed? Is the failure to accellerate enough to go to NHTSA if it happens again?
 
I have a 2003, but idle seems fine. However, if memory serves mine idles at about 600 RPM normally - is this low?

Guy
 
It's not really the idle speed that bothers me. It's the shaking of the vehicle, and the occasional refusal to accelerate immediately. This, according to the dealer, is something that's started with the 2004s.
 
How many miles? My 2003 had that for the first 5000 miles and seems to have gone away.

KS
 
It's not really the idle speed that bothers me. It's the shaking of the vehicle, and the occasional refusal to accelerate immediately. This, according to the dealer, is something that's started with the 2004s.
"Guy" wrote:

I just test drove a 2004 the other day and it did nothing of the sort. I would have noticed because I am very sensitive to stuff like that.

Sounds like a vacuum leak to me.

Bring it back and raise hell because you've paid enough for it and AFAIK that is not normal.

A good technique is to ask to drive the dealer demo, with the service advisor in the car with you. Unless there is some design problem, which I doubt, that car will drive fine. Now demand they fix your car so it is the same.
Click to expand...
 
Good idea about going for a ride in their demo. I've gone for a ride with the service manager in mine, and he was well aware of the condition, and under what conditions it occurs - he could actually predict when it would and wouln't occur. The thought crossed my mind to ask them for assistance in initiating arbitration procedures - whether I go thru with it is another matter - but at least it would get someone's attention at Chrysler. FYI, for the vibration to occur, the vehicle has to be hot - in closed loop as the service manager said - and in drive. AC on or not doesn't matter, but when the compressor kicks in, there's an increase in the vibration for a couple of seconds.
 
Bob said:
Good idea about going for a ride in their demo. I've gone for a ride with the service manager in mine, and he was well aware of the condition, and under what conditions it occurs - he could actually predict when it would and wouln't occur. The thought crossed my mind to ask them for assistance in initiating arbitration procedures - whether I go thru with it is another matter - but at least it would get someone's attention at Chrysler. FYI, for the vibration to occur, the vehicle has to be hot - in closed loop as the service manager said - and in drive. AC on or not doesn't matter, but when the compressor kicks in, there's an increase in the vibration for a couple of seconds.
Click to expand...

If you can get the service manager to document this on paper then you would have some assistance should you go to arbitration. But, my guess is that Chrysler has a programmer in a back room somewhere who is frantically working on a new firmware version for the engine computer. Until that new version has made it through an entire test cycle so they can release it, Chrysler is going to continue to claim there's no problem.

Ted
 
You just bought the car and it has 3000 miles on it so far. WOW... you must drive quite a lot. Did you do a good long "test drive" before handing your money over to the dealer?

Dan
 
Yup, sort of.... I bought it on September 11. It had 5 miles on it. We took a weeklong vacation to Florida, and drove all over the state - hence, the miles, and the annoyance with the vibration. Lots of red light time. Normal miles is ~ 150 a Week.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Latest threads

Back
Top