96 Plymouth Grand Voyager random loss of accel. with oil light, loss of power brakes, and once got P0340 code.

Asked by Rg9 Jun 19, 2016 at 02:48 PM about the 1996 Plymouth Grand Voyager

Question type: Maintenance & Repair

I brought my 1996 Grand Voyager (3.3L, 195k
miles) in to get a laundry list of things done prior to
a lot of driving this summer.  I had the lower intake
and valve covers, PCV valve, fuel filter, fuel pump,
clockspring, and heater core all replaced.  Also had
them drain and fill transmission fluid, flush coolant
(had been overheating, which I've since fixed), do
an oil change, and the guy recommended leaving
some seafoam in the cylinders overnight (which he
did).  He replaced a couple vacuum hoses too.

I picked up the van Friday and it drove great.  That
night my wife drove it and a mile down the street
she lost all acceleration (the car went into neutral
with idle RPM, though it still displayed it was in
Drive).  She got a service engine light, an oil light,
and lost power braking.  She turned off the car,
started it back up, the oil light was gone and she
had power so she drove home.  

I pulled a P0340 code (camshaft position sensor),
reset the code, started it up and could not
duplicate.  I drove the next morning and couldn't
duplicate.  She drove it later that day and all the
same happened except for the service engine light.  
She shut down, restarted, and 30 seconds in while
still in Park it all happened again.  Shut down,
restart, and good to drive for a few minutes, then it
happened again.  Shut down, restart with AC
turned off, no issues and she made it home.  

I checked for codes and there weren't any this
time.  I tried driving it today for 30 minutes with no
issues at all.  I used her key (shouldn't matter on
this model but I'm at a loss) and tried to replicate
every switch, speed, etc. but couldn't duplicate any
of it.

Thinking it was a short somewhere, I put her in the
drivers seat at idle and wiggled all the wires that
are accessible from the top of the engine
compartment.  Nothing.  Engine sounds fine too.

Besides this just being my wife causing the issue,
what is going on?  CPS replacement?  Timing chain
needs tension/replacement?

I'm bringing it back to the guy tomorrow, but this
didn't happen before he worked on it so want to
come in with some opinions.  Any thoughts are
appreciated.

4 Answers

41,755

Have him view the CPS will an oscilloscope check the wave pattern to confirm its Ok.. If he can't do this locate a guy who can do diagnostic work P0340 didn't just randomly appear, read the Data in real time using a DBRIII scan tool. $100 fee should cover the compete diagnosing and the EXACT problem(s) Regards

Thanks! If the CPS is bad would it cause the oil light and loss of power brakes? Seems Chrysler designed some "survival" mode in these things, so I understand no accel. and idle rpm. But the oil light and brakes confuse me. Conversely, if it's not the CPS, would you suspect something related to the timing chain?

Turned out to be the CPS, as indicated by the code. The wife used the term, "car was still on" to mean she could see lights on the dash. I think "idle RPM" somehow got conflated with the aforementioned definition of "car was still on". So the van was turning off on her because of a bad sensor. Thus, loss of power brakes, oil light, (RPM of 0), etc. Sensor replaced and no problems since.

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