Help Please, I have a 98 dodge caravan, recently I have been having problems, It started with the airbag issue, then no interior lights took it to the dealer fixed the air bag issue not the interior lights, about two weeks after that I had a relay in the fuse box under the steering column that started to go beserk, a couple of days later the engine would contuine to run even with the key out, took it to a dealer, they replaced the ignition switch and the BCM. Just got my car back on Monday afternoon, Every thing seemed fine. Well last night my husband was on his way to work and the dash lights went out, he got to work turned the van off and the parking and tail lights stayed on so he had to disconnect the battery. This morning when he left work, he had no parking lights,tail lights or dash lights, but the headlights worked. took it back to the shop. When the key is off and you turn on the headlights everything works expect the parking and tail lights. When the car is off the parking and tail lights remain on.Has anyone else had these problems, I cant keep putting money into this.
2000TC
03-28-2008, 01:35 PM
The 1998 models are notorious for having the solder connections on the back of the instrument cluster board crack. This causes all sorts of electrical problems like you are having.
There are many threads here with similar problems, for example:
The connections can be resoldered and its not that big of a job if you're handy with a solder gun. If not you can probably just swap out the cluster.
Unfortunately, the BCM replacement was probably not necessary.
Rick99
03-28-2008, 06:22 PM
Look in those threads-- one of them gives a DIY repair where you repair the solder joints that break. The dealer will want $1000 for a new instrument cluster on top of everything they've already charged you for their mistakes.
XDGT03
03-28-2008, 07:44 PM
Why don't the dealerships know about this by now? We (RickMN?) figured this out about a year ago now. They've had a decade. My 98 had very similar problems but I do not have keyless entry which it sounds like you may. I resoldered the connections and added a bit more solder too and everything has been perfect for about the last year.
