2011 Dodge Caravan
This year drew an ordinary 78 complaints for a Dodge Caravan — the model's median is 82. What they were about is the unusual part: 41% of them mention start, against 6.5% across the model's other years.
NHTSA opened a defect investigation into this model year.
| Complaints filed | 78 |
|---|---|
| Median for this model | 82 |
| Involving a crash | 1 |
| Involving a fire | 1 |
| Recalls | 0 |
What the complaints were about
- start — 41% of this year's complaints, against 6.5% across the model's other years (6.3×).
- tipm — 25.6% of this year's complaints, against 10.1% across the model's other years (2.6×). Owners wrote it as: tipm, tipm module, stalls, bypass.
- battery — 24.4% of this year's complaints, against 9.1% across the model's other years (2.7×). Owners wrote it as: battery, vehicle start, won, replaced battery.
Words owners used for the same problem are counted together, so a fault written four different ways is measured once. Grouped by which complaints they appear in, not by a list anyone wrote in advance.
What owners wrote
FAULTY TIPM MODULE, CAR WON'T START, REPLACED BATTERY, REPLACED SPARK PLUGS, ADDED BYPASS, AND NOW STILL WILL NOT START. STARTED IN JULY WITH JUST THE BATTERY DYING AND THEN AUGUST THE FUSES BLEW AND BETWEEN SEPTEMBER AND NOVEMBER I HAVE JUMPED IT WEEKLY. NOW…
DEALERSHIP TRYING TO HAVE ME REPLACE BATTERY AND FUEL PUMP EVEN THOUGH THEY KNOW WHAT THE PROBLEM IS. HAVING TO GET THE TIPM REPLACED. CAR WONT START EASILY OR AT ALL. SHUTS OFF BY ITSELF. HAVING TO PAY $1200 TO GET THIS FIXED. CROOKS!
Verbatim from NHTSA complaint filings, with identifying details removed.
How this was worked out
Every year of the Dodge Caravan was compared against its own history rather than against other cars, which removes popularity and age from the answer — a common car draws more complaints at equal reliability, and an older one has had longer to accumulate them. A year is flagged when it drew at least 2.5× this model's median and at least 50 complaints.
This is a fault record, not a review. Nobody files a federal complaint to say the car was fine, so it shows what tends to go wrong — not whether owners liked it, and not whether it is a good car.
Source: NHTSA complaints, recalls and investigations, retrieved . Look this vehicle up directly on NHTSA's site to check anything here.
Own a 2011 Dodge Caravan? What happened to yours?
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