Car started and was making whirring sound from engine bay. Car went into gear normally, but after a few minutes stopped moving. Lost gear, and stopped in the middle of the road, but the engine stayed running.

This happened 5-6 times during a two mile trip but I got it back to the house.

Read up on it, and this transmission (A604 Transmission) has pages and pages of complaints and problems. Allpar has some good suggestions on how to save your transmission if you want to put in the time and effort.

We bought this van used about 4 years ago. We haven't had really any trouble out of it until recently. Which just happens to be the worst time possible. We live on less than 15,000 a year and have 5 kids one of which has been in the hospital for the past 5 months. We have to make three trips a week to the hospital. Its right at 100 miles from where we live. It doesn't want to shift through the gears. It revs up way to far and you have to let off the gas to get it to shift. If you are going up a hill or trying to accelerate after a stop or a slow down the passing gear will kick in. You have to let the speed drop way back down to make it stop and shift. Sometimes it will and sometimes it takes several tries. We are like many others. We don't have the money to keep paying mechanics. We don't have the money or the credit to go get another rig. And we can't be without. What are people like us suppose to do. It takes everything we have to live. I have done much investigating on this and it seems I am lucky that it waited this long to fall apart. But none the less it seems to be a problem that many people have a complaint about. What is it with this year rig? Any suggestions of what to do would be greatly appreciated.

The transmission was serviced every year with original spec fluid and filter. Pan was cleaned and magnet cleaned. No warning. We had the rear main seal changed at the dealer. 1 week after that, the transmission problems started with failure to engage, then manifested to failure to change gears. Funny thing is if you manually shifted the trans, it was bullet proof, no slippage at all. Seamed like the govenor or something was bad. If that is the life of an a automatic transmission, never again. Dealer said the 31ht transmissions had problems right out of the box. The vehicle didn't have a trailer hitch, so it couldn't have been to excessive use. Wife drove 11 miles/day back and forth to work. Transmission shifted maybe 4 times each way because all were expressway miles. Call me crazy, but we are currently looking at a PT Crusier.

The Transmission well it works at times. I took it to the dealer cause it would nt go into gear . They said it will be 3300.00 to fix . I am a low income family that cant afford this . This will be number 3 in dodge vans in the last 3 year . Guess what the problems were. TRANSMISSIONs. now a family with 5 kids has no car. How can a company keep selling such a mess and get away with it. This seems to be a common that they get away with year after year. I am not sure what i should do with the van i cant afford to fix it nor buy a used car atm, but tax time i am afraid to fix it .. One question. How can you sell something like this knowing there is a problem and get away with it. Is there someone we can report this too ??

Thanks - seriously angry mother

Van broke down 3 days before a trip from New York to Virginia. It died in the driveway and made nothing but whining and grinding noises. Had van repaired at $2,000 (Transmission and Differential were bad) AND AT 52,000 MILES!!! WHAT THE HELL? Anyways, got stuck 150 miles away from home, van would not start..had to call wife to drive down and get me....eventually the van started. Then today its not starting again. Not sure if this is a problem that developed when the transmission was replaced or not. If its a seperate problem I will file a complaint on here for that too.