what does it mean when they sputter when your driving and my service engine light is on

It could mean a few things. But with a 98 Dodge Caravan I am assuming that you have poor spark plugs and/or bad wires, carbon build up on the piston heads and this triggered the oxygen sensor to set off your "check eng" light. Not so difficult. A tune up should clear that. If you have someone mechanical handy then buy a can of Seafoam. Have 1/2 of that sucked into the engine with the vacuum tube the other half pour into your gas tank and rest for 15 minutes. Then race your engine up to 2k rpm and a bunch of white smoke will dump out your exhaust clearing your engine. Dump some Marvelous Mystery Oil in your oil, and then it is a matter of checking to replace your spark plugs and wires if needed. The service light could then be reset with an OBD2 scanner which you can pick up or borrow from an autostore with nice people.

this was helpful. cleared up for one day service engine light when off the next day started again started dyeing at stops. changed spark plugs last night still dyes