Chrysler in response to a NHTSA query said complaints also include dimming or flickering of the minivan headlights in addition to sudden shut-offs.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has opened an Engineering Analysis on Chrysler, Dodge and Plymouth minivans because of more than 1,500 complaints of failing minivan headlights on 2005 models.
According to NHTSA, the minivan headlights randomly shut off and remain dark on Town & Country, Dodge Caravan and Plymouth Voyager minivans. More than 600,000 vehicles are potentially affected.
A Chrysler spokesperson told AutoInformed that it was fully cooperating with the engineering analysis.
While opening the analysis, which sometimes leads to a safety defect recall, NHTSA said that minivan headlight failures do not show a repeatable pattern since the problem occurs at a low frequency of one or more weeks between failures.
For this reason NHTSA thinks that most complainants have not attempted diagnosis or repair of the problem. This means the cause of the alleged defect is unknown. However, where repairs have been attempted by replacing the headlight switch and/or the body control module, mixed success is reported.
In interviews, minivan owners told NHTSA’s Office of Defects Investigations (ODI) that they can usually toggle the headlight switch, or turn on the high beams by actuating the column stalk (pulling it upward), when the headlights unexpectedly turn off. This apparently works and the high beams have always been available when the column switch is used.
No verifiable crashes or injuries have been identified in the vehicle owner complaints (VOQs) of NHTSA. Chrysler in response to a NHTSA query said its complaints also include allegations of dimming or flickering of the headlights in addition to loss of headlamps. Chrysler’s analysis of available data “indicates a declining trend occurring in the field.”
Chrysler data, however, reports two alleged accidents; one where a vehicle lost forward lighting and struck a deer, and one where a person alleged their lighting stopped working, causing them to depart the roadway and drive into a ditch causing a minor injury. Both incidents occurred several years ago, and neither allegation has been confirmed by ODI.
NHTSA said more testing will evaluate possible root causes of the alleged defect, and will include analysis of suspect components collected from the field, and/or assessment of subject vehicles that have reportedly experienced the headlights out problem.
