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98 Grand V-ger with intermittant soft brake pedal

20 messages,  Last post on Dec 26, 2009 at 8:26 PM

You are in the Chrysler/Plymouth Voyager, Dodge Caravan Forum.

What is this discussion about? Dodge Caravan, Chrysler Voyager, Plymouth Voyager, Van

Messages Page 2 of 2

#11 of 20 Re: Chrysler Grand Voyager [tel4] & [rfederkeil] [joepeterson56] [vcheng] [joepeterson56] [vcheng] by joepeterson56

Mar 27, 2009 (8:17 am)

Replying to: vcheng (Mar 27, 2009 8:06 am)
I somewhat agree with your first sentence, but when running 5 cars and living on a fixed tight income, it runs into way more than a "few pennies"per part.
 
As far as the second one goes, I actually purchased a "factory" manual for the Daewoo, and it is useless!! Any chiltons I ever owned for any vehicle I ever owned,for every , which I stopped buying years ago, in favor of Haynes were better than that thing is ! I will say, the Honda Factory service book for a different year honda then the one I own, that I got my hands on was fantasic!

#12 of 20 Re: Chrysler Grand Voyager [tel4] & [rfederkeil] [joepeterson56] [vcheng] [joepeterson56] [vcheng] [joepeterson56] by vcheng

Mar 27, 2009 (8:45 am)

Replying to: joepeterson56 (Mar 27, 2009 8:17 am)
Please let me make my meaning more clear: The desire to save a few pennies per part referred to penny-pinching by the manufacturer, thereby shifting the burden of fixing crappy engineering onto the poor customer.
 
You are right that the quality of service information varies greatly. Daewoo is in the pits, but several other marques are very good. The Germans are very stingy too I think. I for one do try to take this into account when choosing my vehicles.
 
What you do is what I admire.

#13 of 20 Re: Chrysler Grand Voyager [tel4] & [rfederkeil] [joepeterson56] [vcheng] [joepeterson56] [vcheng] [joepeterson56] [vcheng] by joepeterson56

Mar 27, 2009 (10:04 am)

Replying to: vcheng (Mar 27, 2009 8:45 am)
I too am sorry I didn't make myself more clear to you too. I took no exception to "saving a few pennies". I was referring to the price of repair parts in general in this area of the US. While I agree that perhaps the german engineering is rather exceptional, that fact sure didn't influence or help Chrysler while they were under control of Daimler - Benz. I actually have found, and mentioned in another post some place in this forum, that for my money and experience from having owned about 7 USED C/P/D mini vans, that my 1994 Plymouth Voyager Sport 3.3 FWD was the best one I ever owned as far as them having "worked out" most of the engineering and design flaws, and then for 1995, they began to change everything it took them all that time to almost get perfect. What a shame. I do believe it is all part of a bigger conspiracy to get us all one way or the other and drive the big profit machine that is in a complete failure now around the world. When something works and "ain't broke" definitely, do not fix it! There does not seem to be a pride in craftsmanship or customer service anymore. Just look at how many cars are still around from ages ago. I sincerely doubt that we will see even a fraction of that many of this generation of autos around and fully functional in 30 to 50 years from now.
Now I must appologize to everyone here and the moderators for going slightly off topic here, about another make, but as long as it was mentioned here, I will answer that or comment about it here as well.
The only other thing I will say, is about the Daewoo Leganza. While it certainly does have it's fair share of quirks and problems from all I have read about, I bought a 2001 brand new and withing 6 months, GM had shut down all the US dealers. Two things made me buy that car. The Dealer was 5 blocks from my home, and it seemed like a pretty good value for the money at the time and living on a fixed income, it was a no brainer decision. My 01 got hit and was deemed a total if all the body parts were available, so I found a 99 with a blown engine, and did an engine swap from my 01 into the 99. Also swapped the struts, and saved every moving, and high wear or breakage type part off the 01 as spares for the 99. It does appear to me, that the 99 was in fact of higher quality and came loaded with a lot of frills as standard over the 01, even though most items basically looked alike and were inter-changeable. BUT you sure could see the quality of the parts had gone down over the years even tho they looked almost identical.

#14 of 20 Re: Chrysler Grand Voyager by vcheng

Mar 27, 2009 (10:21 am)

Replying to: joepeterson56 (Mar 27, 2009 10:04 am)
Great post!
 
However, you do realise that YOU are a bad customer as fas the car companies are concerned. I mean this in a good sense, just like the person who pays his/her credit cards in full each month is anathema to the credit card company.
 
What the car companies need is somebody who not only buys the car, but also pays for an extended maintenance contract for meaningless "inspections", pays a monthly subscription for CrapStar safety surveillance, and then trades in the vehicle for them to resell after two or three years.
 
What the hell is WRONG with you?
 
I wish you every success with your maintenance travails!
 
Back to the topic, I once had a 1999 Dodge Grand Caravan and oh the stories I could tell about its engineering and maintenance.

#15 of 20 Re: Chrysler Grand Voyager [vcheng] by joepeterson56

Mar 27, 2009 (10:34 am)

Replying to: vcheng (Mar 27, 2009 10:21 am)
YES I AM< AND PROUD OF IT !!!!!! I have very much enjoyed our exchanges, thank you very much. If you just think about things for a bit, we all have worked for a salary, which actually supports our employers as well as our families. Makes sense, when it works as it should. But, enter the GREED factor. It becomes more about big business and the "fat cats" who run it, wanting more and more and more, at the worker's and consumer's expense. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer, and those cosumers less in return as the qulity and life span of the products go down hill, and employees do not even get wage increases that keep in line with inflation or the raise in their employer's profits. One one winner in that situation!

#16 of 20 Re: Chrysler Grand Voyager [joepeterson56] by vcheng

Mar 27, 2009 (10:41 am)

Replying to: joepeterson56 (Mar 27, 2009 10:34 am)
Just to get back on topic, one more cause of a soft brake pedal in these vans that I was surpised slightly to find was the darn piston in the front calipers.
 
The darn thing is made of polyphenolic resin and has a tendency to crack with the inevitable heat recycling from the too-small brakes to begin with. I am sure it saved the bean counters few cents per peice over a proper metal piston.

#17 of 20 Re: Chrysler Grand Voyager [vcheng] by joepeterson56

Mar 27, 2009 (3:09 pm)

Replying to: vcheng (Mar 27, 2009 10:41 am)
Tell me about it! I was the proud owner of a brand new 1984 Plymouth reliant staion wagon, started stalling out 2 blocks from the dealer the day I drove it off the lot. But that is another horror story of it's own! . It was the first of the only 3 brand new cars I ever bought in my life! It ate brakes and rotors constantly. Kept taking it bake to the dealer. Last time it happened, it made the most horriffic noise you could imagine. In fact it had the noise from the second time I took it in for the problems. They kept telling me all the parts were fine and wearing normal, so they just "blew everything out" with the compressor. That didn't satisfy me, so I pulled the front wheels to take every thing apart and see for myself what the problem was. Long story short, had to drive a socket onto the caliper mounting bolts on the drivers front with a 5 lbs hammer, and use a 3 ft pipe over the handle to crack the bolts loose. They were practically welded in place from all the heat. No signs that they were ever removed by the dealer. Pulled the caliper and pads,. Pads were metal on metal, and when I pulled the caliper off a piece of the plastic piston fell out onto the ground. Looked at the end of the piston, and it had been cracked for a very long time apparently, and the piece that fell out had somehow gotten wedged between the piston face and brake pad, eating up any play at all and keeping the brakes dragging until the day I pulled them. They never had that one apart, and I doubt the others either. That was when I decided to never set foot in a dealr or garage ever again and have done all my own repairs both major and minor ever since.

#18 of 20 Re: Chrysler Grand Voyager [joepeterson56] by vcheng

Mar 30, 2009 (5:31 am)

Replying to: joepeterson56 (Mar 27, 2009 3:09 pm)
But of course!
 
The 1996 vans kept the old style under-specified calipers, plastic pistons and all, and I think that those calipers are still in service on the newer designs from ChryCo.
 
There is no substitute for doing whatever work one can do on one's vehicles ever. It may not be possible to do all the work, but even then understanding what is going on can be quite valuable.

#19 of 20 Re: Chrysler Grand Voyager [joepeterson56] by tel4

Mar 30, 2009 (3:31 pm)

Replying to: joepeterson56 (Mar 27, 2009 10:34 am)
I agree entirely with your comments - its just the same over here We have just bought a new motor home (RV) well Nov 08 & the only mileage that its done is backwards & forwards trying to get repairs done. Wednesday we are taking it back to the manufacturers to have 13 faults rectified. The agents have had attempts at repairs & but by the time you get home your back to square 1. Nobody seems to care any more, once they,ve got your cash thats it. Its the people at the top - polititians, bankers, public servants they just give you " 2 fingers" because they know it will just be a slap on the wrist. Over here its like living in 1 big nut house some of the rules & regulations they cunjure up. Have tried giving the old brake pedal a good stomping which seems to have done something ( to the Voyager)

#20 of 20 playmouth by shabd

Dec 26, 2009 (8:26 pm)

Hi I have a 1998 Plymouth Grand Voyager 3.3 liters and for some reason the headlights don't turn of automatically i have to take out the battery. What should I do?

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