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Vans & Minivans Chrysler Town & Country/Dodge Grand Caravan Chrysler Town & Country and Dodge Grand Caravan 2005+
1422 messages, Last post on Sep 25, 2009 at 8:55 AM
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I purchased a 2005 GC 3.8L used with 15K on it last summer. Currently have 24K on it with mostly highway miles. Bought at dealer & service records show previous owner changed around every 3000 miles. I am using Castrol 5W30 and the engine is using a quart of oil every 3000 miles. Is this is the normal range? Previous caravans with the 3.0L engine I drove at work didn't use this much oil even after 75K miles. Is anybody with a new GC using this much oil?
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Replying to: frogger123 (Jan 31, 2006 10:07 am) 1) A car (ANY car) that uses a quart every 3,000 miles is just fine. Typically manufacturers have some arbritrary point (like 1 quart per 1,000 miles) where the car is deemed to be using too much oil. 2) We have two DGCs, both with the 3.8, one with 106,000 miles, the other with 57,000 miles, and neither use a full quart between 7,500 mile oil changes. 3) If an engine doesn't use some oil, that to me is more of a worry than if it uses a little too much. The fact is that the oil that lubricates things like valve guides is not recoverable, and as such, if no oil is being consumed, then the valve guides aren't being lubricated. Best Regards, Shipo |
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Replying to: shipo (Jan 31, 2006 10:26 am) |
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Replying to: frogger123 (Jan 31, 2006 1:46 pm) Hmmm, not too likely, especially so since many engines (the Cadillac Northstar comes to mind) are considered very frugal with oil at anything over 2,000 miles to the quart. Funny thing, there was a time when the older of the two vans was using oil more along the 3,000-4,000 mile range, but that was with conventional oil. Given that I find that fairly normal I've never given it much thought, however, when I converted it to Synthetic (Mobil 1 5W-30) I sort of expected consumption to get worse (given its superior flow characteristics), however, it gradually got better. Why? I haven't given that much thought either, however, a theory has just descended upon my brain. I wonder if the oil rings had become partially clogged/sludged on dealership oil, and if it just took a while for the synthetic to clean up the mess. Hmmm, thinking about this a little further, for the first year or two (between say 20,000 miles and 50,000 miles) after I started using Mobil 1, the oil would be quite black after only three or four thousand miles, now however, the oil stays amber color almost for the entire duration of my typical 7,500 oil change. If you want to take a look, I posted a couple of rocker arm pictures a few weeks ago at http://photos.yahoo.com/shipo inside of the "Caravan Stuff" folder. In those two pictures you can see a small pool of oil puddled in the rocker arm, and clearly see through the oil. These photos were taken at about 104,200 miles, 4,200 miles after I had changed the oil. If you do take a look, click the "Download" button to see them in their full resolution. I have heard a few (very few) rumors of some DC engines sludging, although I don't think that any of them were MiniVan engines. I wonder, even though the previous owner of your van changed the oil every three thousand miles, if the fact that they were using dealership oil (i.e. whatever the dealership got a good deal on from their supplier) meant that you've got some clogged oil rings. As a suggestion, you might want to convert to a good Synthetic (not Castrol, unless you can get the German version which is true synthetic). If you decide to convert, I would only go 4,000 miles for the first couple of changes because the amount of dirt that synthetic cleans up and then needs to hold in suspension is rather amazing. After the first couple of changes you can then return to a more normal 7,500 mile OCI regimen. Best Regards, Shipo |
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Replying to: shipo (Jan 31, 2006 2:17 pm) BTW, my Caravan has the 4 cylinder engine, which works a lot harder than the 6 cylinder, so I switched to Mobil 1 at 1,500 miles and will thereafter do changes at 6,000, 12,000 etc. (the 2006 allow a maximum 6,000 mile interval, compared to a couple of years ago when 7,500 miles maximum was common in DC products; probably due to sludging concerns). 2d BTW, the "1" in Mobil 1 signifies it is their full-synthetic formulation. There are other flavors of Mobil oils - Mobil Drive Clean (or just Clean) and Mobil 5000, Mobil 7,500. Be warned these are NOT full synthetic. When in doubt, read the label! |
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Replying to: genetuck (Jan 27, 2006 9:58 pm) I took my Caravan back in to the dealership last night and went for a drive with the Head of Servicing. He said there was definitely something strange in the ride. I brought the van in today for servicing and they found that a belt in the right rear tire was broken and causing the wobble at speed that I was feeling. This was fixed and the van is driving much smoother than before. The vibration in the steering wheel and seat are still there but not as intense as before. I took another new 2005 GC for a test drive last night and it had the same vibration as bad or worse than my van, so I guess it is just something in the way these vans drive. I think I was overly sensitive to the vibration because of the wobbling from the rear tire that was making me feel sick. I'll see how the drive to work is tomorrow. The dealership has been very good at investigating the problem and listening to my complaints so far. I'm glad they found something that could be fixed and I wasn't imagining the weird feeling I was getting when driving this new van. 
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Replying to: rrc1 (Jan 31, 2006 4:27 pm) Maybe the bad tire effected other areas? kinda when you have a gut, and that messes with your back muscles and alignment (only thing I could come up with
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Replying to: shipo (Jan 31, 2006 2:17 pm) |
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Replying to: frogger123 (Jan 31, 2006 7:50 pm) As for "thinner" oils, it depends upon what is causing your consumption issues (albeit issues that many a VW and Cadillac owner wishes they had). If it is simply oil making it past the valve guides, then the thinner the oil when hot (the second number in the oil spec), the more you're likely to use. That having been said, if the problem is your oil rings, my suspicion is that the thinner oil may actually be better able to work its way in there and clean that gunk out. If you do decide to convert to a fully synthetic oil, switch back and forth between 5W-30 and 0W-40 for a few oil changes and see if you notice any difference. A quick note about Quaker State oil: Back in the mid to late 1970s, I used to be the "go to guy" at my college for my fellow students who were driving old beaters that needed a new engine. Dumb though it was, I would overhaul any I6 engine from the Big 3 for $100 plus parts, and any V8 for $175 (Chevy Vegas and them furrin thangs was extra), and as such, I made a fair amount of money and saw the insides of lots of engines. The engines that I hated tearing down the most were those that had been run on a steady diet of "Pennsylvania Grade Crude", meaning Quaker State, Pennzoil, Wolf's Head and a few others that escape me for the moment. Why? Two reasons, 1) because of how much gooey crap was inside the engine, and 2) because of how said gooey crap smelled. Yuk, barf! Is Quaker State et. all still "Pennsylvania Grade Crude"? Don't know, don't care, I simply won't use it. As for what type of driving uses the most oil, our older van (a 1998 GC Sport 3.8) spent the first half of its life as a bus-station hack and maybe only got out on the highway every other week or so. Once we moved up here to New Hampshire (from the NYC metro area), it started spending easily three quarters of its time on the highway. With all of that said, I haven't really seen any correlation between average speed and oil consumption. In fact, last summer I drove it from just north of Boston to Chicago to Manhattan and then back to the Boston area. I drove nearly three thousand miles at an average speed of 72 mph (per the trip computer), which meant that I spent lots of time north of 80 mph, and my oil consumption didn't seem to change at all. Best Regards, Shipo |
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We are a family with two cars. Until recently, the two cars were a 2005 Ford Focus ZX3 hatchback with a stickshift, and a 2005 Honda CR-V with a 5 speed automatic transmission and a 2.4 liter 4 cylinder engine. In November of 2005, we traded in the hatchback on a bigger hatchback – a 2006 Dodge Caravan SE, with no options and thus the 4 cylinder 2.4 liter engine. Although the lack of power windows and power door locks, and manual side mirrors, is a little spartan these days, I grew up on cars like these and find the presence of air conditioning, good upholstery, and carpeting plenty of frosting on the cake. The rest, as my dad used to say, is for Cadillac owners and not practical people (he never met an accessory that didn’t eventually break down). The big question gnawing at me when I switched to the Caravan, was whether a 4 cylinder – the lone surviving 4 cylinder in a minivan – would be strong enough to propel it. To keep up with traffic, including freeway merges. And to haul a reasonably sized cargo – not 7 adults and their overseas luggage (unrealistic, get the 6 cylinder!), but at least four “old fashioned” (not fat!) adults and light luggage. The answer afater 4,500 miles of driving it in all conditions, including mountain and snow, is – yes. It isn’t fast, but it’s adequate. It used to be that the CR-V felt considerably slower than the Focus ZX3. Now the CR-V is top dog, it is considerably faster than the Caravan! But other than the subjective difference in pick-up, the Caravan keeps up with traffic just fine, and it is extremely quiet at high speeds. The only negative the typical driver will notice, is that there is a fair amount of engine roar if you have to get on the throttle in a short freeway merge situation (in other words, run it up to 50 mph in second). For city driving, the 4 cylinder is definitely more than adequate, since the gearing and throttle tip-in are set up for good off the line performance up to 35 mph. I am getting 23.8 mpg based on a 35 mile (each way) commute to work via a fast flowing freeway, with only some slow and go for a couple of miles on the trip home. On roadtrips (gas up, get on the freeway, get off to gas up, drive some more on the freeway, gas up again etc. with no significant) I have hit as high as 25 mpg. So this is one of those rare new cars that comes close to its freeway rating (even those “highway” on the EPA cycle is more “rural” than the modern 75 mph or faster interstate trips). While the SE can be had with a power package, or a V-6, for years Dodge has been using this entry level van as an advertising tool to get shoppers onto their lot. They list less than $100 over $19,000, but often go on sale in dealer ads for less than $15,000, or even less than $14,000. The lowest I have ever seen them is for $13,500, and when I saw that, I had to buy one. At least in California, what they advertise, they have to sell, and the dealer had 7 to choose from. Although this base model has the grey polyurethane bumpers (the same plastic used on the Honda Element), I was able to choose a darker color van which hides, very well, the fact that this model has unpainted bumpers. I’m not zipping around other cars anymore, and I’m not getting 31 mpg anymore, but the automatic is very convenient, the Caravan is incredibly quiet, and when I load up family and friends for a long drive, I am probably getting one of the best “miles per passenger” ratings out there. I highly recommend the 4 cylinder Caravan (at least 2006 and later, since they cleaned up emissions to match passenger car standards in 2006).
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