Transmission wont shift, speedometer not working

[quote:b547b95312="grtbb35"]Electrical problem
1997 Dodge Caravan 6 cyl Two Wheel Drive Automatic 100000 miles
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wife got into van this morning to go to work and found that nothing worked on the display gauges, the van been sitting for 3 days for the holidays.[/quote:b547b95312]

My van was doing the same thing about 1 yr ago. If is the same problem, The van will start up but will shut itself down. that is because the shut down relay is still engaged. I would sit places for 2-3 hours at a time before it would start. Its not hard to fix if it is the same problem. You will need to remove the screws for the dash on the drivers side. This will give you access to pull out the console the the gauges and everything is in. It is connected with wires on the back of the console. Pull the console out just a little and reach your hand back there and move the wires around. If your lights come on then, You Probably have a lose connection. Please let me know if this works for you. Good Luck!

Every once in awhile my instrument panel guages would all quit working then would flash on. one day the speedometer and odometer just quit and never came back on. still the rest of the guages will flash off then on. ever since the spedometer quit now my rpm will go to 4000rpms and only doing about 50mph. seems as if though its not shifting. replaced input and output vehicle speed sensors, body control module, transmission control module. no change. speedometer not working still. took to autozone had pluigged in and says bad ground or loose connection as the problem. but dont know where to look to find what wires it could be for speedometer. I am a female and not good with this stuff! Trying though! could my instrument cluster be the problem? or is there plug ins behind the panel (for the guages) that could of come loose or unplugged? Any help or suggestions would be appreciated!! :) Thank you!
Rachael

You need to scan for codes I would say you need new cluster panel It will not effect the shifting as for the tranny not shifting 95% its the solenoid pack on the side of the tranny

Electrical problem
1996 Dodge Caravan 6 cyl Automatic 140K miles

My '96 caravan with 140,000 miles has a weird problem with the speedometer...it'll work most of the time but after I've driven it a while, it will go down to zero, but I can keep driving...It'll start working again when I turn off the engine and let it sit for a while then start it back up again. And I just noticed on the interstate it'll wobble terribly, go down to zero, then when i keep pushing the gas pedal it'll get back up to where it should be. The cables are fine, I just had them looked at, what could be causing this problem?! and also, sometimes my blinkers just decide to stop working, when they'd be perfectly fine the day before.. I'm only a student so I can't afford to have these issues. =(

Cluster problem is a very common on them caravans and most common to fail is the connector pins and solder on the circuit board
to determine if its a speed sensor or cluster issue need a help of a scanner tool where you can plug it in and what the speed on the cluster when it s start acting up if speed on the scanner doing the same
you have problem in the speed sensors replace them both
if speed steady on the scanner and not on the cluster ,problem inside the cluster
as for the blinkers
when they dont work for you try and wiggle the ignition key if all back to normal suspect ignition switch going bad
good luck

I was driving home at 55MPH when my speedometer stuck on 55 MPH my RPM guage was jumping from 2 to 7 thousand RPMs and my voltage guage kept jumping from 13 volts to 10 volts. My engine was operating just fine. When I shut the engine down and retatred the RPM Guage kept jumping from 1 to 7 thouand rpms at idiling speed and voltage guage jumped fom 13 vots to 10 and the speedometr does not work at all. Everything else is just fine. the van runs and drives just fine. Do I need to just replace the speed sensor? If so How difficult is it to do.

Sounds more like a feed problem to the dash.Check all battery connections to be sure they are clean and tight, also use a meter to check voltages at different spots in the fuse panel and the dash feeds.Sounds like something isnt getting a full 12 volts. Have you had the PCM scanned for any trouble codes?

I have a 1995 Dodge Caravan I seem to be having some sort of electricla promblem. When traveling down the highway out of the blue my tachometer will start rapidly move up and down from 2 to 7 up and down. Then speedometer will stick at whatever speed I am traveling at. My volt/amp guage will rapidly jump up and down from 14 volts down to the bottom on 8 volts and back to 14 volts. This will continue untill I shut my engine off for a few minutes and restart. Then once I restart the engine the speedometer wil become unstuck and drop done to 0. Once I put it in gear and drive away everything is fine. Whenever this occurs I never have any check engine lights or service engine soon lights come on. No warnings whatsoever. It might be a week or even a month later till it does it again. Sometimes it may be three to six months. Also my cruise control does not work at all. I hardly ever use it maybe once a year when on a long trip. My Dodge Dealer said they cannot test if for I need to bring the vehicle it in when it is malfunctioning, but by the time it starts acting up and by the time I can get to the Dealer it stops for I have to shut the engine down and restart before I get an apointment set up with the dealership to bring it in. It always seems to happen when the dealership is not open or on a wekend. One mechanic I talked to over the internet chat room said it could be the transmission speed sensor another said it was the alternator. I had the engine completely tuned up and serviced at 125,000 and had the transmission oil and filter changed as well. The problem began before I had all this service done to it and continued after have the engine and transmission serviced.

In 95 3 main computers were tied to gether on communication wires. Body, engine, and transmission.PCM, TCM, BCM, each has self diagnostics. The speedo gets it's signal from the vehicle speed sensor, the tach gets it's signal from the two sensors on the transmission(input and output) the voltmeter is driven by battery charging voltage by the body computer which drives the instrument cluster. If your having problems with any one of the three this could occur. What does the dealer say about the DRBIII they use to read all these systems. There may be a code for a bad TCM or BCM. They have bulletins regarding cluster ground problems also. Have you ever taken it in to the dealer so they can see if any fault codes are present? I think you may have a problem with the instrument cluster itself. A bad circuit board or ground or poweer wire in the connector behind the cluster. This was a common complaint. If I see any bulletins regarding this I'll let you know. Bulletin 08-07-94 Rev. B deals with the plug wires interfering with the input sensor wires causing bad signals, a bulletin 08-77-94 is for vehicle speed sensor problems causing speedometer flucuations the new part number was 4707386. The TCM had problems also bullrtin 08-15-99 is for reprogramming the TCM, which gives tachometer information that is used for shifting and by the BCM for the cluster.

My speedometer suddenly stopped working, it tried to go out a few times before, now it does not work at all. needle laying on peg. any suggestions on the problem?

Change the speed sensor.

You need to list the engine size. If you have the 3.0L Mitsubishi engine, those mostly used the really tough three speed transmission. Speed sensor failures were real common on the mid to late 1980's models. The 1988 model, (like mine), was the last year they still used a speedometer cable, so a sensor failure only affected the lock-up torque converter and cruise control. By the mid 1990's they changed the design to a very reliable three-wire "Hall Effect" sensor. Failure of those is rare. The earlier design used a reed switch and rotating magnet. The extremely common complaint was the speedometer and odometer would not work for the first two or three miles in the morning, then they worked fine for the rest of the day. Eventually the failure became permanent. This was so common, it was one of the few times we did not waste customer's time and money on testing anything. We just popped in a new sensor. Fifteen minutes and you were on the road again.

If you have the 3.3L Chrysler engine, almost all of those used the four-speed computer-controlled transmission. Those use an input speed sensor and an output speed sensor. The Transmission Computer calculates road speed and sends that information to the instrument cluster. If either of those sensors has failed, you have more problems than a non-working speedometer. Specifically, the system will be stuck in "limp mode" which keeps it in second gear.

I found both the speed sensors, and my Van is a LE, V6, 3.3 Litre, two wheel drive, I had to order the sensors and will update as soon as I change the Input and Output Sensors, thank you so much for your answer.

I wasn't expecting that. You should be stuck in second gear if either speed sensor is bad with that transmission. If it's shifting okay through all forward gears, the speed sensors are okay.

It shifts fine, no problem with that, the speedometer had been acting up once in awhile, then it just quit working, does my 1991 have a speedometer cable, some have suggested it does. Any info will be greatly appreciated, thank you in advance.

The 1988 model, (like mine), was the last year they still used a speedometer cable. '89 and newer models used the Hall Effect three-wire speed sensor with no speedometer cable on the three-speed transmission, and two separate speed sensors with the four-speed transmission. If your four-speed is shifting fine, the speed sensors are working.

The first thing you need to observe is if the odometer is working. If it is, that limits the problem to the instrument cluster. If it is not, the problem could be in the Transmission Computer or the instrument cluster.

The next step is to use a scanner to see if the Transmission Computer is updating the current mileage, then see if the instrument cluster is updating.