Chrysler Repair: Van starts and dies, gas gauge, chrysler dealer

Question
I have a 1998 Chrysler T&C, 3.8 engine LXI with 108,000 miles on it.

I see you responded to Rich with a like problem on 11/30/2005.

My van will start and die immediately. All electrical systems seem normal except the gas gauge does not work. You can try couple more times; same results. After three tries; van no longer will start/die. It first happened in mid 2005, then about every month starting in September. It has happened twice this February. Last time only two days apart.

I have taken it to a Chrysler dealer; no problems found; no code read outs. I replaced the battery earlier this month. It appears to reset itself after about 2.5 hours(before I let it set overnight). It may take less time than that to reset. I had thought it was somehow tied to an anti-theft system malfunction; but using the remote to lock/unlock does not clear the problem.

Answer
Hi John,
I have had this question regularly and I'm still waiting for a definitive answer to come back. I too suspect the the anti-theft system but there seems to be no proof of that being the cause. I am limited in not having the anti-theft manual pages for the late-90s vans. On 2/22 I had a similar exchange with Doug and here is my last response:
"I don't believe there is any built in reason for the controller to limit to three cranks. It is conceivable that the theft security program may be acting inappropriately after three failed attempts to start and put the controller into lock down. But then you should be able to clear that by using the key to lock and unlock either front door. I don't have the complete wiring diagram of the security system so I can only conjecture.
It might be useful, if that refusal to crank occurs, to know where the starter relay is in the power distribution center under the hood and at that point to see if the relay can be heard to click when a helper tries the ignition key. While that would not prove there is nothing wrong other than an inability of the relay to activate the solenoid on the starter motor it would (absent an under dash anti-theft starter relay in series with the starter relay as in the Sebring model) suggest that there is nothing going wrong based on the controller. As I pointed out parenthetically however the Sebring has a series of two relays for the starter ciruit, the first of which is normally closed but which the anti-theft system can activate to open which prevents the voltage necessary to go thru the regular starter relay and on to the solenoid of getting to the latter relay. Whether the van is set up with the second relay is something I don't know. The next time you get a refusal to crank, you could take a jumper at the starter motor and jump briefly from the heavy red battery wire to the brown wire on the solenoid and if that kicked the starter motor then you would know that there is indeed something wrong in the starter motor circuit between the ignition key and the solenoid. Otherwise you would learn that it is a battery issue."
Once we resolve why it won't crank after three tries we can then try to find out why it won't idle for more than a moment. It could be the theft system, or it could be a flakey sensor for the ignition system but that would normally set a fault code. So let's keep working on this.
Roland