Strut, shock or spring failure on the 2000 Dodge Grand Caravan
1 crash 1 of the 63 reports for this failure mention a crash, a fire, an injury or a death. Those are the owner's words on the complaint form, not a verified finding, and one report can mention more than one.
When strut, shock or spring failure gets reported
Owners of the 2000 Dodge Grand Caravan report strut, shock or spring failure at a median of 92,500 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 75,000 miles and a quarter after 120,000 miles, from 55 reports that carried an odometer reading.
A part like this is normally expected to survive 105,000 miles. It is the 2nd most-reported problem on this model year.
The mileage distribution
The reported range runs from 60,000 miles at the tenth percentile to 150,000 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 91,200 miles across the middle 80% of reports.
A spread this wide points at use rather than design. Towing, climate, service history and city mileage all move a failure like this, so the median is a weak guide to any individual car.
0% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 60,000 miles | 75,000 miles | 92,682 miles | 120,000 miles | 151,200 miles |
Read the 10th percentile as “one report in ten arrived this early”. Exact figures are shown in this table because it is the table of record; everywhere else on the site they are rounded to the precision the sample can carry.
What a percentile can and cannot tell you here
These five numbers describe the readings owners gave, in order. The median is the middle one: half the reports arrived below it. The 10th and 90th are the edges of the bulk of the distribution, and the distance between them is the part worth reading. A tight spread — say 70,000 to 95,000 miles — points at something that wears out on a schedule, and the schedule is knowable. A wide one, 20,000 to 190,000, points at a fault that hits some cars and never troubles others, which means the mileage on the listing in front of you tells you very little about your odds.
What these figures are not is a survival curve. Every reading here comes from a car whose owner filed a complaint, so the sample contains only failures: it cannot say what share of the fleet made it past 150,000 miles untouched, because those owners had nothing to report. Nor is the mileage the moment of failure — it is the odometer reading as recalled at the time of filing, which may be weeks later and is sometimes rounded to the nearest ten thousand by the person typing it.
Percentiles are shown at all only once 8 readings exist for the vehicle and mode. Below that the middle of a handful of numbers is noise wearing a decimal point, so the figures are withheld rather than dressed up.
What happens, and what it costs
Of these reports, 1 a crash is mentioned. Owners write their own complaints and the agency does not verify them, so read this as what the reports say happened rather than as a confirmed count.
Putting it right typically runs $500–$2,000 at an independent US shop. That range is an editorial estimate held in this site's failure-mode catalogue, not a figure from NHTSA, and it is a repair cost rather than a diagnosis cost.
The same failure on other years
The same failure is reported on 5 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2000, at a median of 92,500 miles, and latest on the 1997 at 150,000 miles.
By volume the 2000 is the worst of them, which makes this a problem of this specific year rather than of the model as a whole.
If one year stands out to the left, that is the year to avoid; if the whole line sits at a similar mileage, this is wear rather than a defect in one production run.
Tick median reported mileage Solid middle half of reports Faint 10th to 90th percentile Colour how bad the failure is when it happens
What owners wrote
Verbatim from NHTSA complaint narratives, trimmed for length. The mileage is the one the owner gave.
I have a 2000 dodge grand caravan. The front left strut tower rusted, almost completely through. Had I not noticed this when checking the oil, the strut could have busted through the tower. I took the vehicle to two body shops, both of which told me that they replace a lot of these. This is a structural part of the van, not a fender or a door. The estimate for repairs is over $1200. In october of 2002, there was a service bulletin issued regarding strut tower corrosion.*ak
Dt: dodge minivan 2000 grand caravan. Consumer complained about the strut platform where the strut meats part of the body. Also, called strut seating. The strut seating, or platform rusted prematurely. Consumer took vehicle to garage last week, on july 7, 2005, and mechanic informed her that the rust was there, and this made vehicle unsafe. Mechanic said that he had never seen rust on this new vehicle. Consumer also contacted dealer, and dealer said that they had been getting complaints on this matter. Dealer was gilberts chrysler dodge. She then contacted manufacturer, and was told that there was no recall and nothing could be done until there were enough complaints filed. Consumer visited other dealers to look at similar vehicles and found that this problem existed in the other dodge vehicles, but not other manufactured vehicles.*ak
Dt: the consumer took the vehicle to dealer for a safety emission test. They said the left front strut tower was corroded at the top. Found this out on september 27, 2005, was told that there was technical service bulletin ( tsb) 2304402, the consumer contacted chrysler, they said they would look into it, but that was basically it. There was no forewarning and no noise. *ak
Also reported on the 2000 Dodge Grand Caravan
Other powertrain problem
Other engine problem
Other body or interior problem
ABS module or sensor failure
Other electrical problem
Steering column or shaft failure
How far this goes
Complaints are voluntary, so 63 is a floor and not a count of affected cars. Mileages are typed in by owners and cluster on round numbers. And the mode itself is assigned by software reading the complaint text, which is reliable in bulk and fallible one report at a time.
Questions this page answers
At what mileage does strut, shock or spring failure happen on the 2000 Dodge Grand Caravan?
Across 55 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 92,500 miles. A quarter were filed before 75,000 miles and a quarter after 120,000 miles. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.
How common is strut, shock or spring failure on the 2000 Dodge Grand Caravan?
63 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 1.0 per 1,000 vehicles. Complaints are voluntary, so this is a floor rather than a count of affected cars.
What this is and is not. These are the mileages at which owners chose to complain to a federal agency, which is not the same as the mileage at which the part fails on every car. It skews toward failures that happened outside warranty, cost real money, or frightened someone. It is still the only public dataset that carries failure mileage at all, and the shape of a few hundred readings is informative even when a single one is not. Methodology · JSON · this failure on other cars
Source Owner complaints and recall records published by the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, model years 1996–2027 Figures rebuilt Published by AtWhatMileage How every figure is computed