Misfire or rough idle on the 2012 Dodge Grand Caravan
When misfire or rough idle gets reported
Owners of the 2012 Dodge Grand Caravan report misfire or rough idle at a median of 95,000 miles. A quarter of the reports come in before 70,000 miles and a quarter after 125,000 miles, from 8 reports that carried an odometer reading.
A part like this is normally expected to survive 92,000 miles. It is the 14th most-reported problem on this model year.
The mileage distribution
The reported range runs from 65,000 miles at the tenth percentile to 130,000 miles at the ninetieth, a spread of 63,887 miles across the middle 80% of reports.
When the reports scatter this far, the mileage is telling you about how these cars were driven more than about the part itself.
0% of the dated reports were filed under 36,000 miles.
The whole distribution
| 10th | 25th | Median | 75th | 90th |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 67,113 miles | 72,312 miles | 94,061 miles | 122,750 miles | 131,000 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
Putting it right typically runs $250–$1,600 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 15 model years of this car. It shows up earliest on the 2005, at a median of 25,000 miles, and latest on the 2003 at 165,000 miles.
By volume the 2019 carries the most reports, with 46; the 2012 has 11. A mode that appears across most years of a model is usually a design choice rather than a bad batch.
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.
My 2012 dodge grand caravan showed a check engine light at 67,000. I checked the code to fnd out p0303 is a engine misfire. Could be ignition, plug, or valve-cylinder compression. I had the engine serviced and the light goes out. The next day the light comes back on. I return the vehicle for service to investigate the check engine light. Further investigation reveals there is a bad compression on cylinder 03. I take the vehicle to dodge and they could have told me up front that the right cylinder head is not covered under the extended warranty from chrysler. They take my car into service and find a leak on cylinder 04 also. They gong to replace the left cylinder head but not the right cylinder head with the same identical problem. I am looking at $3500.00 if I choose to replace the right cylinder head. This extended warranty should cover the defect no matter which cylinder head is defected. My wife loves the car. She wants another one. I told her that because of this issue we would be right back here in 4 years with another 3.6l v6 pentastar engine. I am torn. Do I trade the issue back to dodge and get a 4.0l v6 pentstar. I have…
My 2012 dodge grand caravan showed a check engine light at 67,000. I checked the code to fnd out p0303 is a engine misfire. Could be ignition, plug, or valve-cylinder compression. I had the engine serviced and the light goes out. The next day the light comes back on. I return the vehicle for service to investigate the check engine light. Further investigation reveals there is a bad compression on cylinder 03. I take the vehicle to dodge and they could have told me up front that the right cylinder head is not covered under the extended warranty from chrysler. They take my car into service and find a leak on cylinder 04 also. They gong to replace the left cylinder head but not the right cylinder head with the same identical problem. I am looking at $3500.00 if I choose to replace the right cylinder head. This extended warranty should cover the defect no matter which cylinder head is defected. My wife loves the car. She wants another one. I told her that because of this issue we would be right back here in 4 years with another 3.6l v6 pentastar engine. I am torn. Do I trade the issue back to dodge and get a 4.0l v6 pentstar. I have…
My engine keeps misfiring all the cylinders and I have changed multiple cylinders. While the vehicle was in motion the lights on the inside illuminated and the vehicle stopped in traffic. The engine light came on and I took it to get the codes read and it said p301, p302, p303, p304. I have got this fixed multiple times because it keeps happening.
Also reported on the 2012 Dodge Grand Caravan
Other electrical problem
Other engine problem
Fuel pump failure
No-start or intermittent start failure
Stalling while driving
Other powertrain problem
How far this goes
Complaints are voluntary, so 11 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 misfire or rough idle happen on the 2012 Dodge Grand Caravan?
Across 8 owner reports that included an odometer reading, half were filed by 95,000 miles. A quarter were filed before 70,000 miles and a quarter after 125,000 miles. These are the mileages owners reported when they complained, not a prediction for any individual car.
How common is misfire or rough idle on the 2012 Dodge Grand Caravan?
11 reports have been filed with NHTSA, about 0.1 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