1998 Chrysler Town and Country - Lxi Transmission Stumbles

Not likely.

I hate when I hear people say that you should not touch your transmission until there is an actual problem. There is a reason they have a regular service schedule for them. Would you drive your vehicle indefinitely without doing oil and filter changes on the engine because someone told you that you really don't have to do them at 3000 miles or so as well?

Sure it will save you a few dollars for a while but how many fluid changes could you have just bought for that $1500 or more your likely going to have to spend now? Around here thats about 30 of them! Or around a million miles worth of typical driving conditions.

I do my fluid changes early and am very fussy about neglecting even the most basic repairs. Sure I will spend about a $1000 more on maintenance in the life of my vehicles but then again I do typically push them to 250 -300K miles before they get worn out to the point of not being worth fixing.

These vehicles are known for very poor quality transmissions.

Fluid change frequency may not have made much difference.

The vehicle goes into safe mode eventually and you can only travel at 40 mph.

Get rid of it. The repair cost is more than the vehicle is worth.

I agree with the previous posts, to ignore recommended service intervals is asking for trouble. I know personally one of my roomates in college "thought he had an oil light" that told him when to change the oil. Let's just say that when the oil pump on a toyota camry goes kaput, some cool things happen with connecting rods, engine blocks and the hood. "Like a cheetah out of a cage," was one phrase used to describe the aftermath. An automatic transmission is no different.

I do understand that that era dodge/chrysler transaxle was NOTORIOUS for exploding. However this was usually within the factory warranty, at least from the people I conversed with. I wager that the shops were wary of performing an "easy" maintenance on the timebomb in your van and risking being blamed for it not working when reassembled.

I would try to flush the transmission and replace the tranny filter and fluid. If that doesn't do the trick, don't waste the money on rebuilding it. If you don't mind getting (really) messy, a transmission filter shouldn't be much more difficult than an oil change. But get a repair manual. Another less ideal, but much cheaper option would be to see if a low mileage replacement is available from a salvage yard, but thats kind of a last ditch option in my opinion.

I do know certain parts of drivetrains that I have heard not to mess with. These are usually non-filtered sealed components, rear differentials, transfer cases, and manual transmissions. Typically these components don't have scheduled maintenance, just a "if you have a problem with it" attitude is sufficient. My old '87 BMW manual tranny gave me trouble going into second gear so I thought "I'll change the fluid!" not two weeks later my sychro's literally disintegrated. A experienced BMW technician said that he had seen a number of transmissions that had be abused that were barely holding together just from the junk in the fluid and from being left alone. When the new fluid went in it flushed all that out. Driving with 1st 4th and 5th gear alone is not a ton of fun. I would happily have taken back a finicky 2nd gear as opposed to no 2nd or 3rd gear!

Years ago I had a 1989 Ford Taurus sedan with the 3.8 L and AXOD transmission. I picked it up with just under 100K miles on it. The first week I had it I retrofitted a transmission cooler designed for a 22,000 pound RV on it. I regularly pulled trailers that were way over the factory ratings and often in over drive too. Sometimes way over what the car itself weighed.

But I did transmission fluid changes every 20K instead of the recommended 30 -35 K miles and engine oil changes every 2000 miles. I ran that car hard but treated it well maintenance wise. I ran it to 256K miles on the original transmission and engine. The rest of the car simply just wore out around it to the point buying a newer vehicle was cheaper.

Every good and knowledgeable transmission service tech I have ever talked to said that with the factory cooler and typical lack of fluid changes and service the AXOD transmission I had had at best a 150K service life if driven conservatively. Usually less. However with proper maintenance and the over sized cooler system they said those transmissions wont die and will have a fair chance of outliving the vehicle they are in. Just as I had proved.

Since then every vehicle I have owned got a grossly over sized transmission cooler and is retrofitted to a transmission oil pan with a drain plug plus an inline cartridge type filter thats plumbed into the transmission cooler lines. Plus they get all fluids changed at around 2/3 the factory recommended intervals.

It costs me around $130 and a good afternoon to install the plug, filter and oversized cooler but it what saves me on potential service and repair work for the average life of the vehicles I own its still many many times cheaper than having major drive train work done!

Many of the other so called poorer transmission designs simply suffer from inadequate cooling and crappy and severely neglectful servicing not actual bad engineering and design!

I have to agree with you on the poor cooling. I had a "85 Blazer years ago and put a big trans and oil cooler on it. I often had to let it run for up to an hour while parked and it never overheated, even in 115 degree heat on blacktop. It had a stock radiator.

Can't say as I approve of your towing practices though.

Cheers

It was in the early days of my life when I didn't have a pickup for towing.

Still 256K hard miles on a stock transmission known for being short lived in gentle usage says something about regular maintenance and using adequate cooling systems!

You have no easy solution here.

I worked in service engineering for another auto company, but in talking over the years with my peers from Chrysler, I have to tell you (as others have) that these things have really poor transmissions.

I was told that Chrysler issued many modifications/revisions/updates to these things with spotty results.

Rebuilding is probably more costly than the vehicle is worth.

You could try a fluid/filter change, but only at your own risk, realizing that it might not work at all after you finish.

One possibility is (if you can do your own work) is to find a good (1st problem) used transaxle and change it out yourself.

The ideal situation would be to actually drive the vehicle the used one came out of (2nd problem). Less desirable would to be have the salvage yard guarantee the transaxle if it doesn't work. That scenario doesn't always work either. If it doesn't work, who's fault is it? Finger pointing can start.

Alternative is to have the salvage yard install it. Some will do that. Again, it's a used transaxle, and you pay for what you get.

Just not a good situation, I'm afraid.

I have had 3 Chrysler / Plymouth minivans. 125,000 miles is the typical life expectancy for the transmission. I have seen this number quoted several places. Unfortunately, I don't have any evidence of a simple fix for your transmission.

I had to replace the transmission on my 1990 T&C at 125,000 miles and replaced the right transaxle twice. The 1997 Voyager transmission was replaced at about 125,000 miles. I have not replaced anything on my 2000 T&C with 95,000 miles. I added a transmission cooler to the 2000 T&C so I could tow a popup camper. Hopefully that extends the transmission life.

Note: I was very happy with my purchase of these gently used vehicles. I purchased all of them at about 30% of the "new" price when they were 2-3 years old. I can't understand why anyone would buy a 5 years old Honda minivan for 80% of the new price. I had to replace them because other drivers decided to "total" them.

Your best bet at this point is to weigh all your options. Is everything else in good condition? What does another vehicle cost versus keeping and fixing your minivan. Do you need all the seats or would it be beneficial to get another vehicle with better mpg? How much could you take off your taxes if you donate the vehicle, ...?