97 grand caravan doesn't start

[nat_and_mike]

Please excuse the terminology - I know very little about cars!

My husband and I used the car at 6am, Dec31st - everything was fine. We tried to start the car at 3pm and all we got was a faint "click". The lights work, as does the odometer, fan and we are able to change gears (drive/neutral/reverse/etc). The radio does not work.

My uncle came over, cleaned off the battery terminals, tried to give us a boost. Nothing. He looked at the fuse box located to the right of the battery and tested them. They all seemed to be working. He connected a wire from the battery terminal to the starter under the engine. The starter made a "starting" noise, but the when the key was released, the engine did not catch/start.

My uncle said that the battery and the starter are fine, and it might be the relay or ignition. Does anyone have any ideas or suggestions? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

Natasha and Michael

[ener]

I have the same weird problem as yours... I have a 2003 Grand Caravan... I just got out for 15 minutes to buy some stuff and when I came back, the engine wont start and the same problem that you have describe, I did the same thing like what your Uncle did, except for jumping the starter directly to the battery... What sucks is my car went down on new years eve... I hope somebody could answer our problem...

[yardboss]

This is scary. I have over 200K miles on my 97 Dodge Grand Caravan and it just started this exact problem yesterday! If I try turning the key a couple of times it will suddenly engage. I also noticed it was less of a problem if I make sure the front wheels are completely straight before I turn the engine off. I'm thinking this is either a relay problem or some problem in the steering column.

[HiRez_L]

You might also try wiggling the gearshift lever, I've seen this before when the gearshift isn't absolutely perfectly in park.

[yardboss]

My mechanic tested the system and determined the battery needed to be replaced. It is probably old enough but I'm taking a somewhat pessimistic view that this is really fixed. Battery failures can be very strange.

[PieEatinFattie]

I have a 98 Grand Voyager that had that issue and found that the starter was bad. Mine didn't just die though. It would not do anything on one turn and then work on the next turn and not everytime we used the car either. I replaced the starter to resolve the problem. It wasn't very hard if you can jack up the front end. The starter is right at the front of the engine and all the bolts are pretty easy to get to with the exception of one that I could only get a box wrench on and could only turn the bolt abouta 1/4 turn each time. It took some time but I got it. If this is your problem have your battery checked while you are at it because mine died within a week of replacing the starter.