Questions and Answers

Dodge Grand Caravan No Start Q. 1996 Dodge Grand Caravan 3.0 liter, automatic transmission, 160,000 miles, fuel injected, ABS, P/S, A/C and cruise. I recently lost ground internally in the PCM and replaced it. Now it will not even crank over. No codes, battery voltage and ground are okay. If you bypass the starter relay (connected a starter switch between the starter solenoid and terminal 87 at the relay) the starter will turn over.

The relay is okay. The fusible link is okay. The ignition switch is okay. Do you know if this year van requires the PCM to be reprogrammed or is there anything else you know I can check? Your help is greatly appreciated!!

A. As you can see in the diagram, you should have power at the yellow/red wire and the tan wire of the starter relay with the key in the START position. If not, the relay is bad.

If there is no power at the yellow/red wire at the relay and power at the black/white wire of the ignition switch, then you probably have a blown Positive Temperature Coefficient (PTC) located in PTC cavity 10 of the junction block.

Finally check for power at the brown wire of the starter. There should be power there when the key is in the START position. If not, the brown wire has an open.

Ground for the starter relay is provided by the PCM. What you can do is ground the tan wire of the starter relay and try to start the engine. If it starts, then there is an open in the tan wire or the PCM is bad.