2005 Chrysler Town & Country Problems & Issues

On the 2001-2010 Chrysler Town & Country, the 3.3L and 3.8L V6 engines suffer from water pump failures, thermostat failures, and radiator fan relay failures. The water pump weep hole is a common leak point. Overheating can cause head gasket failure. The cooling fan relay is a frequent failure point causing overheating at idle.

On the 1996-2007 Chrysler Town & Country, the 41TE (A604 Ultradrive) four-speed automatic used behind the 3.3L and 3.8L V6 in 1996-2007 Town & Country vans is the single most-reported failure on the nameplate. Clutch material and worn friction debris circulate in the fluid, plug the small feed passages in the valve body and pump, and starve the planetary gearsets of lubrication. The result is a burned front/rear clutch pack or a shattered planetary carrier. Owners commonly report the failure preceded by a stuttering or repeated 1-2 shift, delayed forward/reverse engagement with a double bump, and limp-in (second gear only). Aggravating factors documented on the owner forums include use of generic ATF instead of Chrysler ATF+4, a missed 30k-mile fluid service, and a weak/AC-ripple-producing alternator or a bad output shaft speed sensor signal confusing the TCM. This is the 4-speed unit and is a separate story from the later 62TE 6-speed used from 2007 on.

On the 2004-2007 Chrysler Town & Country, the front impact sensors on 2004-2007 vans were built with brass bushings that corrode, particularly in road-salt states. The corrosion cracks the sensor housing and lets water in, which kills the sensor. A failed front sensor sets the airbag lamp and can prevent the front airbags from deploying in a frontal crash. NHTSA covered it twice: an initial 2007 campaign that replaced sensors with steel-bushing units in the salt-belt states and offered lifetime free replacement of failed sensors elsewhere, then a broader 2010 campaign covering sensors that crack under environmental exposure. Because the remedy was partly conditional on state of registration, plenty of vans in the field still carry the original sensors.

On the 2005-2016 Chrysler Town & Country, the Stow 'n Go system uses a plastic pull-ring latch in the floor panel ahead of each second-row seat; the ring tugs a cable that releases the heavy floor bin lid so the seat can fold in. The rings sit where every passenger steps and are pulled hard to lift a heavy lid, so they crack and break off - forum owners describe it as near-universal on high-mileage vans, with at least one broken ring on almost every example. Separately, the seat's own release cable stretches, unclips or snaps at the crimp, which leaves the second-row seat locked upright or, worse, stuck part-way down and unable to latch back into the floor strikers. A seat that is not latched to the floor is a restraint problem, not just an inconvenience.

On the 1996-2010 Chrysler Town & Country, the pushrod 3.3L and 3.8L V6s develop a well-known cluster of external oil leaks as the gaskets harden. The rear (firewall-side) valve cover gasket is the classic one: oil runs down the back of the block and onto the exhaust, producing a burning-oil smell with no obvious puddle. The other repeat offenders documented by minivan-forum owners, in rough order, are the oil pressure sending unit, the oil cooler-to-filter-adapter seal, the filter adapter-to-block gasket, the crankshaft/harmonic balancer seal and the rear main. Because several of these drip onto the same area, owners frequently replace the wrong one first. This is a 3.3/3.8 pushrod-engine pattern and does not describe the later 3.6L Pentastar, whose leak comes from the plastic oil cooler housing instead.