2000 Town and Country LXi completely dead

Asked by 2000LXiGuy Apr 26, 2020 at 05:10 PM about the 2000 Chrysler Town & Country LXi LWB AWD

Question type: Maintenance & Repair

I bought a 2000 Chrysler Town and Country awd with the 3.8L engine a
couple weeks ago and it was being used for a short 15 mile round trip
commute. After a couple weeks the vehicle went into limp mode with
transmission solenoid pack codes. I put in a new solenoid pack and while I
had in the garage did some checking on various running lights that were out,
found a blown fuse and dead bulb and got most of the lights going. I say this
to give the information I was doing some minor stuff with the electrical system.
After the replacement I took a test drive and everything was fine, it shifted as
it should, no check engine light. Great, I came back, parked it and a couple
minutes later went to start it again and heard a click kind of like a dead battery
sound when you try to start, then everything went dead. No electrical function
at all, no horn, flashers, dash lights, nothing. The battery shows proper
voltage and is only a couple weeks old. Someone suggested a fusible link I
found the green 10 gauge wire labeled Fuse Link coming off the fuse box next
to the battery. It doesn't feel blown, tested and it shows continuity and wiggling
it around didn't give a moment of power so I believe this is not the issue. I'm a
bit stumped what to look at next. There was no erratic behavior with the
anything electrical before this, went from normal to dead with a turn of the
key.  I'm open to any suggestions about what to look at next.

2 Answers

One other detail - the battery was replaced when I bought it so is about three weeks old and is showing 13 volts with a multimeter so I don't suspect that is the problem. And it started just fine and drove for 30 minutes just prior to it going dead.

Never mind - Problem solved. I doubt this will help anyone else because it was such a random thing. The terminal connectors to the battery looked very new and I noticed when I was connecting the negative terminal there weren't any sparks so I started trying to make sure there was voltage from positive to the chassis ground. There wasn't, so I took the terminal off the vehicle and ground the coating off off where the connectors touched it, put it back on and problem solved. I'll have to admit if I hadn't figured that out I might have ended up chasing this for quite awhile and replacing some things that didn't need replaced. I don't know how it had connectivity for several weeks and randomly lost it during a short drive, but it did. Again, I don't know if this will help anyone out but if you are chasing a similar problem, check your terminals. I am happy this fixed it, just a bit annoyed I spent a day chasing something that took 5 minutes to fix.

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