03 Dodge Caravan w/ P0442 and P0455 codes

check the lines around the service port

thanks and i hate to plead ignorant but where is the service port? i am an aircraft mechanic but when it comes to these new vehicles who knows where they tuck accessories. sorry for the trouble.

follow the vaccum diagram under the hood, it will have a green plastic cap on it, likley around the air box if I remember right!

all right. thanks.

hey jeff forgot to ask you. can i bring up other topics of discussion concerning the same van such as power windows and engine oil seals, etc...?

I'd rather we didn't get too far away the gist of the sight which is drivability concerns! It becomes hard enough keep up with that and branching out too far invites too much product bashing and squabbling about what should be recalled, warranty etc! on a paticular make and model. I'm always available for private e-mails should you choose so!

Clif wrote: thanks and i hate to plead ignorant but where is the service port? On my '01 Caravan, it's behind passenger headlight area. The Purge Solenoid is also in the same area. Find the Purge Solenoid, it has 2 hoses. One hose goes straight to the Throttle Body, the other short hose goes to the Service Port, from there it goes under the van to the Canister.

Just wanted to say THANKS to Jeff Compton. I had the following codes on my 2002 Town & Country.... P0456, P0455 and P0442. I googled these codes which led me straight to this forum and several of Jeffs posts, which pointed out my problem..... rotten rubber connector hoses to the green service port (next to the air box). Problem fixed in several minutes. Signed up to this forum to say THANKS to JEFF and this forum. I will surely come back again in the future.[/b]

Jeff, I have a family member with a 2002 Grand Caravan 3.8 and she had the same "small leak" code. The dealer charged a reasonable fee to diagnose, but they want well over $300 to change the vent valve. They say nothing else wrong besides the vent valve. Are these valves that expensive? Last time I looked under a van it seemed like not a lot of labor to change it. Thanks much, Dave

The vent valves aren't that bad at all, the leak detection pumps are a little more work but still nothing too hairy unless it's a van that's been modified for wheel chair access or some all wheel drives are a little different but the vent valves used to be only less than an hour's labour to test the valve itself and replace it. There was a tsb on some caravans from around 02 when they first came out for them and I must have done a 100 of them for .4 each. If you have a vaccum pump you can check it yourself. Put 20 hg of vaccum to it and it should hold for about 40 secs. if it does it's okay. I think they cost around 20 bucks. I think 300 bucks just to change it is way too steep assuming we are talking about a stock van and a vent valve and not an ldp. If you can give more info on what the quote on the invoice from the delaer said I can maybe make more sense of it or point you in a different direction. You can pm me as well if you wish

Thanks, Jeff for confirming what I thought. The van is nothing unusual, 2 wheel drive, no modifications of any kind, no trailer hitch. She took it in with the MIL on. She authorized the diagnostic fee (0.75 hr). They called later in the day to say it needed the vent valve and would cost around $350 ADDITIONAL (presumably testing the valve was already done as part of diagnostic). She checked with me and I advised her to decline. The invoice says " 63486 Declined repairs needs vent valve 1.0 " I do have a vacuum pump and will take a look at the car over the weekend. I don't doubt the diagnostic, just the price of replacement. I usually advise people that you get what you pay for. But occasionally I find that some pros get greedy, in which case I do advise DIY. Dave

well let me know how it works out

Well, it's done. The vent valve cost me $9.00 plus tax at a local dealer. I didn't bother testing the old one. Replacing the valve took me a total of 12 minutes. That doesn't include driving the van with one wheel up on a piece of lumber so I could crawl under. Remove 2 small hose clamps, remove 2 hoses and one small tube from valve, then install. Done. Reset the code, doesn't come back. If I had a drive-on hoist, I could have done it in 5 minutes. That much for the $300+ repair. If they had asked for $100 or $150 I would have said sure, go ahead and have them do it. They still would have made out like bandits. Lesson they didn't learn: greed doesn't pay. Thanks again for the help. Dave

well let me know how it works out!

I agree that sounds a little high, but don't forget that mark ups on parts may be significantly higher than jobber price. The reason? Mark ups are the nature of doing business. Parts houses exist for that very reason. Also, dealerships are responsible for their own price setting. For example, you could go to the parts counter and buy a part for X dollars, but if you go over to the service department the part will cose X dollars plus a 30-40 percent mark up. This is not illegal and is done everywhere. Parts account for about 20 percent of the shop's total profit. As for the labor cost being so high, many shops will charge a minimum fee (usually an hour) for any labor that is less than an hour. Also, many labor guides we use are inconsistent with eachother. One may say the R&R will cost X amount and the other may say much less. If the shops labor rate is $100 per hour and the book calls for 1.5 units to replace said valve, then $150 would be the labor charge. The part that is 9.00 for you could easily be 70- 80 dollars out of the service department. That brings you up to $225-230. All businesses have additional fees. Usually the additional fees are a standard 10-15 percent, so you can add another 25 dollars which gives you 255 dollars. Then with tax that gives you about 275 dollars. Don't forget that this 275 dollars hasn't included code retrieval, and the tech's diagnosis(no one ,including myself, will take the customer's word for it, when they tell us what they think the problem is). That would be a standard hour fee for the code retrieval(100dollars) and the diagnosis time(probably around an hour) and that's another hundred dollars. So their estimate of 300 dollars sounds like a pretty reasonably estimate to me. It doesn't bother me that people can do the job cheaper than a shop. That's very true. But the shop has to give a warranty, quality work, and pay their technicians, mechanics to perform the work. In addition, there are thousands of dollars a month in overhead fees that a shop must cover. So, do it yourself if you want. No one's putting a gun toyour head and forcing you to use an expensive service. But don't condescend your speech to the shops as if we're out to screw everyone everywhere(though some may be). We are a very expensive shop, and we have many good customers. Many though think we charge too much. That's fine, but we have a very low come back rate and our work is of the utmost quality. Don't like what we charge? Then do it oyurself, but I doubt you provide the warranty and guarantee of quality that we do. But then again, we don't use wooden blocks when we perform our work. Lesson you didn't learn: No one likes a know it all.

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