Care and feeding of Caravan/Voyager transmissions

[CatLoversPizza]

I've now owned six Caravan/Voyagers. I love 'em because they're cheap as anything to buy and they'll run forever if you treat them right.

I constantly hear people complain that their Caravans like new transmissions almost as much as they do gasoline. One guy said he replaced his O/D tranny every six months before he sold the van to me. I drove that same van 70,000 miles and never once had a transmission problem.

In fact, I have never replaced a transmission. I just junked a 1988 Voyager with 210,000 miles on it. We owned it since about mile 134,000 or so. Reason we junked it? My wife accidentally put tranny fluid in the master cylinder, otherwise we'd still be driving it. Every one of these vans we've owned, we've put lots of miles on.

The secret? Using ONLY Chrysler ATF+3 transmission fluid. Yep. Sounds silly, but it's true.

If you've been putting anything other than real Chrysler ATF+3 in your tranny, have your fluid changed out and replaced with the real deal. Trust me, you'll notice a difference in the way it shifts, in fuel economy, and if you've ever replaced a tranny, my guess is you won't have to ever again.

My 2 cents. Hope it helps someone.

[waltham41]

Are you saying that a quality brand of ATF+3 like Castrol is not to be used? Just Chrysler brand?

[CatLoversPizza]

No. I guess I should have clarified.

Any decent quality brand of Chrysler approved ATF+3 is sufficient. However, I run into people all the time that think it's OK to put Mercon/Dextron or whatever else happens to be handy into a Chrysler transmission, and that's simply not the case.

Just a month or so ago I stopped at our local garage/gas station to pick up a quart for the van we just retired. They didn't have any Chrysler ATF of any sort, and the mechanic said "We put Mercon/Dextron into everything. I put it into my own RAM pickup. It won't hurt anything. You don't need that special Chrysler ATF."

No thanks...

Trust me, it does matter.