I've had a couple odd issues lately with my '96 Dodge Grand Caravan LE (3.8L, fwd, 121K miles). The first was a slight electrical hiccup that left me without much of the instrument panel for a week. No speedo, and the digital gear indicator and digital odometer only showed the left half of their displays--even when the ignition was off. At the end of the week, I went to drive the van, and it started much slower than normal (new battery needed, thinks I), but the instrument panel somehow "reset" itself and has worked fine since, this was about a month ago, and the battery (3+ yr-old DieHard) has been fine since--back to the characteristic high-speed Dodge start, even in single digit temps.

The second issue was yesterday as I was about to leave for a meeting. I started the van and immediately noticed it was idling very rough and the rpms were fluctuating by about 50-100 rpms. I scraped the windows (was about 15 deg F), thinking maybe it was just cold or something and proceeded to drive away. Well, it died right after I crossed the RR tracks just 2 blocks away (made it over fine, though). It was able to be restarted, but I had to drive home with 2 feet to keep it running, and by this time it had warmed up some and the idle had dropped to about 550-600 rpms, normal is about 800 warm, I think. I finally got around to looking at it today, and it did not repeat the behavior in the least--drove it just fine. I then perform the engine code check through the ignition key, and no codes came up (other than the batt disconnect and end codes, 12 and 55, respectively). I am aware that there could be codes stored that are not displayed by this method, but I'm wondering if anyone has any experience with this. Should I be concerned, should I get the free code-read from AutoZone, or should I just chalk it up to cold weather and not worry about it?