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My mighty dodge caravan turbo finally let me down

T

thedarkwolf

Diamond Member
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12.5 years without a single break down until yesterday. It has been ticking for two months or so and sounded and acted exactly like a sticky lifter so I changed the oil and put some MMO in it and ignored the problem. Yesterday taking my dogs up to the park for their daily walk I finally found out what the ticking really was. My flex plate sheared around the crank lol. Had it towed back to the house and am not really sure what I'm going to do with it, probably part it out. A new flex plate is only $22 and a couple hours worth of work removing and reinstalling the trans but I really don't feel like it. I've been hunting a new beater off and on for a year now without much luck. Hard to justify spending $4k for a car I don't drive much when the van did everything I needed it too, had power everything, and working a/c but it is dead now. Best beater I've ever had 🙁.
 
I had the v6 version. Bought it for $100 drove it 4 years and sold it for $400. Beaters are nice and cheap, but it left me longing for something nicer even though I truly didn't NEED something nicer.

They are pretty reliable IMO though.
 
Common problem. Change the flexplate and you're good to go.
It'll be cheaper and easier to than finding another beater.

flex.jpg
 
Compared to the hassle of finding a new car that is in good enough condition but cheap enough to be considered a reliable beater, replacing the flex plate should be a piece of cake. What would it cost to pay a shop to do the work, it's probably about what you'd spend on a new car right? If the picture was taken today it looks like the tires have good tread, any other beater will probably need new tires off the bat plus who knows what other problems may be lurking that will need attention within a few thousand miles, I'd suck it up and pay for the repair, unless you really want something else in your driveway it's a waste of money to buy something else.
 
The van has 170k miles on the body. The drive train has less than 20k on it though. I've rebuilt the engine trans over the years. I know the smart thing would be to just fix it and it wouldn't be hard but I'm sick of the thing. As I've said I've had it 12.5 years and I'm tired of driving a car that rattles, clanks, and has more wind noise than a jet. And that pic is it's good side 🙂.

Think I'm going to go look at a 01 subaru outback tomorrow for $3500. It has already had the head gaskets taken care of so should be good to go for 100k miles.
 
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The 4 cyl caravan had a factory turbo in the late 80's or early 90's, I can't remember for certain but I believe it was a downgrade from the standard V6 at the time. Chrysler was doing turbos on mass market vehicles at least a decade before the other domestic manufacturers, with a few mods these vans made pretty quick drag strip sleepers.
 
Yep - Sometimes you just need a new ride. I would say you are due after that long. But - I would probably fix it so I could sell it complete - I'm way too lazy to part something out.
 
kornphlake said:
The 4 cyl caravan had a factory turbo in the late 80's or early 90's, I can't remember for certain but I believe it was a downgrade from the standard V6 at the time. Chrysler was doing turbos on mass market vehicles at least a decade before the other domestic manufacturers, with a few mods these vans made pretty quick drag strip sleepers.
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I wouldn't say it turbo was a down grade from the 3.0l v6 it was more of a wash. The 2.5l turbo had 150hp and 180ft-lbs of torque and the 3.0l v6 had 140hp and less than 180ft-lbs of torque, too lazy to look it up. I think the main reason the 2.5l turbo made it's way into the van is they didn't have enough 3.0l engines to go around and had more than enough of the turbo engines.

Supersix I'm too lazy to part cars out too, I've had my wrecked 94 miata sitting in my back yard for 2 years and am finally starting to do something with it now. I'm hoping I can put it on turbo-mopar.com and sell it whole for $500-600 as is. The only things of value on it are the engine, trans, and tires and I would ask that much for the engine and trans. My engine and trans have those few mods that would make it a fairly quick drag strip sleeper 🙂.

of coarse I may come to my senses overnight and decide to just fix the damn thing over the weekend well maybe next weekend looks like it will be cold this weekend. I know my van only has 170k miles on it but in 89 dodge caravan miles that is like 340k miles lol.
 
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kornphlake said:
The 4 cyl caravan had a factory turbo in the late 80's or early 90's, I can't remember for certain but I believe it was a downgrade from the standard V6 at the time. Chrysler was doing turbos on mass market vehicles at least a decade before the other domestic manufacturers, with a few mods these vans made pretty quick drag strip sleepers.
Click to expand...


Any now they've stopped... (except diesel, but that's different)
 
LOL, man those things are ugly, but it owes you nothing...in fact, you probably owe it to her to have her fixed up for one more trip around the world.
 
HarryLui said:
Common problem. Change the flexplate and you're good to go.
It'll be cheaper and easier to than finding another beater.

flex.jpg
Click to expand...

Is that a DIY repair with a welder? I'm sure that's safe and perfectly balanced and centered at 6500 RPM...
 
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These vans rocked. This coming from someone with many Dodge caravans. Some over 300k miles on the motor(1998 3.8L V6). I generally use them for work vehicles, to carry tools in, but I've got one that is just a passenger vehicle as well.

These turbo's were great fun though, they were a good bit peppy and are getting more and more rare. I'd say fix it and keep driving it.
 
I for one, had never even heard of a Dodge Caravan turbo before this thread.

Say, what's the trim on the turbo models, I may go do some junkyard hunting. Lol 🙂
 
janas19 said:
I for one, had never even heard of a Dodge Caravan turbo before this thread.

Say, what's the trim on the turbo models, I may go do some junkyard hunting. Lol 🙂
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Not only did they make turbo caravans you could also get a turbo caravan with a 5 speed stick 🙂. They offered the turbos on all the different caravan/voyager trims from the cargo version to the loaded LE trim like mine so you can't really go by trim. Just have to look for the turbo sticker on the fender.
 
exdeath said:
Is that a DIY repair with a welder? I'm sure that's safe and perfectly balanced and centered at 6500 RPM...
Click to expand...


that doesn't look like it's repaired to me, I can see gaps in that. probably just laid it out after replacing for the pic.
 
that's a bummer man. The real problem is, nothing you get will haul the crap that van can. They are quite handy if you DIY and need a good dry place to put stuff.
 
Fix it, the problem with the next beater will be you inheriting the old owners problems. This one, you know what it's quirks are.
 
thedarkwolf said:
Not only did they make turbo caravans you could also get a turbo caravan with a 5 speed stick 🙂. They offered the turbos on all the different caravan/voyager trims from the cargo version to the loaded LE trim like mine so you can't really go by trim. Just have to look for the turbo sticker on the fender.
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My father in-law had a turbo with a 5 speed when I met my wife, he gave it to my brother in-law a few years later, I guess the muffler went bad and he quit driving it, the registration expired because they couldn't get it registered with a bad muffler, he kept it for a couple years in his garage then called a scrap yard and had it towed away. If I'd known he was going to scrap it I'd have given him a couple hundred dollars for it and fixed the muffler and driven it myself, I thought he was going to fix it at some point so I never made an offer.
 
Yeah I wish it was a 5 speed.

I just spent 6 hours driving back and forth to look at an 01 subaru outback that I didn't buy. It was one of those that looked great in the pics all 29 of them but when you see it in person turns into a POS. Ran and drove good though other than slop in the shifter but I'm use to a miata with one of the best shifters there is so that maybe normal. Anyway I got to eat a Rax which don't exist around me anymore 🙂.

Fixing the van is starting to sound better.
 
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