QuestionQUESTION: Hey Kevin, been reading your answers for a while. My car has been out of commission since the end of august and the rural mechanics here have no idea what to do with my car. Calling my problem "chasing a ghost".
My car's instrument panel goes nuts at 18-20 mph. The speedometer drops to 0, the cruise light flashes on and off, the engine revs up and down (rpm guage rises and falls). Now what's really weird is that a window that hasn't worked for 3+ years rolled itself down automatically when this happened. I had one working window (front passenger) before this started happening. Now I have my driver's window and rear passenger window working. The front passenger doesn't anymore. One local mechanic replaced the speed sensors, and the local car dealership replaced the TCM. Neither helped. My guesses are bad ground wires, bad junction block/BCM. Would love to hear your answer.
ANSWER: Hi Andrew,
I believe that either fuse 11 behind the dash (remove end cap to access) has a crack in its wire or the section of the ignition switch that powers that fuse has got a bad connection. They powers the instrument cluster and the body computer and the tcm. So look closely at that fuse to see if it might be faulty. If that is not the case, you could try jumping a wire from the lower end of fuse 9, nearby, to the lower end of fuse 11 (simply pinch the wire in the socket) as an experiment to see if that clears up most of the problems. If it does then a new ignition switch would be a prudent repair.
Roland
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QUESTION: Hey Roland, and thanks for taking time to answer my question. I followed your answer to a T. Jumped a wire, didn't affect anything, so ordered ignition switch and installed it. Now all my windows work and the gauges don't flip out when I hit the problem speed, (18-20mph) but the car still drops out at that speed. It shifts into second at 15mph along with auto doorlocks activating, then 3-5mph later the speedo drops to 0 and the engine continues to run. The engine jerks and revs until I drop below that speed and the speedo picks up again and it's fine. I can rev the engine in neutral so it's getting fuel. I tried dropping it in low gear to get up above the speed but same reaction. I'm completely out of ideas myself, and eagerly await your response.
Not sure if my last message comes attached. Car is V6 2000 Chrysler Cirrus LXi model. So far have replaced TCM, input/output speed sensors, Ignition Switch, Battery.
ANSWER: Hi Andrew,
Are you saying that the car won't go faster than 20 mph under any cirumstances, or that once it does the speedo drop, jerk and rev, etc. that you can get past the problem and up to speed as you desire? What does the tach show when the speedo is showing 0, does it too show 0 even though the engine is running still?
Roland
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QUESTION: Well ya got me thinkin after that question. I went out and found a hill and coasted down the hill past 20 mph. The speedo continues on past 20mph, but the oil pressure light comes on. When flat ground the engine revs down jerkily and the tacho follows suit as it revs. Think my head's gonna explode tryin to figure this out, so I'm just gonna grab a beer and wait for your response. I'm better with that than cars haha. Thanks for everything.
Andrew
AnswerHi Andrew,
The best approach would be to get a fault code readout for any coded numbers stored in the engine and transmission controllers. Sometimes you can do it with the ignition key:"on-off-on-off-on and leave on" doing that in 5 seconds or less elapsed time. Then watch the odometer window in the cluster to see if the mileage reading changes to show any 4 digit numbers, preceded by a P. Let me know what they are and we'll go from there. If that doesn't work, then find an Autozone parts store where they often do such a readout using a plug-in code reader for free. Be sure to get the code numbers, ask what they mean, what to do, and how much. Then we'll compare to the shop manual advice. An independent shop will do a readout for under $40 if there is no Autozone nearby.
I suspect that once we get some clues about what is going on this behavior will make sense. I can't visualize exactly what is going on so using the self-diagnostic capability of the car itself if the way to go.
Roland
