Last night, I ran into a few problems with my 98 town and country minivan. It was working ok for the most of the evening, but when i tried to start it up, It acted as if the battery was disconnected. Turn the key...no click, no lights, no nothing. So i checked the battery terminals and wiggled the cables (some corrosion was there) and the interior lights came on. I tried starting it several times, and it would run for a few seconds, then die out. It did start after the 4th or 5th attempt, but several things stopped working.

The low beams won't work (hi beams are fine)
The automatic door locks wont work (from either door switches or fob)
The rear window wiper wont work (but the rear washer is ok)
The alarm doesn't "chirp" when i lock with the fob, but the interior lights come on when i press unlock on the fob

I checked most electrical things...radio, interior lights, electric windows, etc... and most seem to be working ok. I continuted to use the van for 6 hours or so and it seemed to be driving ok and no other electrical problems were obvious.

Are all of the problems connected to one fuse or one relay that I can replace? Or am i looking at a BCM problem and it needs to be reprogrammed?

Thanks for any help in advance.

 

clean and inspect all main power cables. Use a DVOM to verify you do not have an unwanted high resistance, check cable to starter. on you 4 or 5 attempts to start, did it make any clicking noise. you could have 2 problems that are unrelated.

 

The van starts and runs fine now, it's the low beams and door locks not working that i'm concerned with now

 

did you check fuses? have you checked for power to the switches (lock and light)? do you have a schematic, DVOM and the abilities to combine them into a rational and pragmatic trouble shooting application for these issues.