Chrysler Repair: V6 3.8: wont accelerate hard/fast, chrysler town, independent garage

Question
I have a Chrysler Town and County LSi, V6 3.8, when you accelerate gradually just driving down the street it runs fine, it idles good, but when you mash on the gas and accelerate fast it cuts out and bogs down.  What could it be?

Answer
Hi Pam,
You didn't tell me the year so I can't be too specific. But the general way to go is to find out whether you have any fault codes stored in the engine computer which it may have recognized that would give us a hint. You can try the ignition key:"on-off-on-off-on and leave on, doing that in 5 seconds or less elapsed time. Then if the van is as new as the late 90's watch for the odometer window to change from the miles reading to some 4 digit code numbers starting with the letter P. Let me know what those are and we can go from there. If the van is older the '97 then watch the check engine light which remains "on" to begin to flash, pause, flash, etc. Count the number of flashes before each pause, then repeat the process to assure that you get the same number of flash counts. Then tell me the counts in order of appearance. If the van is '96 or newer you can also get the P codes by going to an Autozone parts store where they will plug in a code reader and get the codes that way for free. Or go to an independent garage where they will do the readout for under $40.
As soon as you have a clue from the code readout let me know and we can figure out what to do next.
Roland