I have a 2012 I bought with 135K miles, and no maintenance history. It has this strange grabbing growl/shudder vibration that happens very intermittently and only for a few seconds at a time. I am not aware of any dash lights coming on, and the only OBDII code is that it is unhappy about the signal shape it is getting from the front ABS sensors, but the ABS system is supposed to be OK. This shudder came with the van, and is still happening despite some major part replacements.
Between 40-60 mph, normal level straight dry asphalt roads, van empty or loaded with ~1000 lbs, it suddenly feels and sounds kind of like one wheel is running over a growler strip. There is a bit of vibration I can feel in the steering wheel, and the van shakes a little, and slows down a very little bit. But this only lasts for 2-4 seconds and stops. It can happen twice in 20 miles, then not for the next 100 miles on the same drive, or not happen at all for 300+ miles.
In zeroing out the maintenance schedule and eliminating all the existing obvious problems, I replaced CV axles, wheel bearings, tie rod ends, control arms, ball joints, outer tie rods, bar links, every moving part in the front suspension and drive train except the struts which seem fine. Motorcraft, Moog, new CSG CV axles; "good" parts. (Note: the Motorcraft wheel bearings were NSKs). I replaced all the rear brake parts and find the rear wheel bearings to spin smoothly with no obvious problem. Flushed in new car juice in all possible systems. This shuddering has not changed at all.
I have new Timken rear hubs in my parts box, but I am not certain this is the problem at this point. It does feel like a brinelled wheel bearing might feel, but it happens so seldom...
Could this be a brake or two chattered by the ABS, or some weird transmission gremlin? Or what?
Profuse thanks to the community for providing such useful information on these vans!