QuestionQUESTION: Lights were left on the car last week, car wouldn't start.
Jumpstarted it, took it to Checker, they replaced the battery. Next day, car started, but stalled shortly after. Day after, car started, stalled at times and had a "Check Gages" warning light on. Took car to Autozone, said battery and alternator O.K. Increased idle slightly, but "Check Gages" light still appears, but now the light is intermittent. Car still stalling. Any ideas?
ANSWER: Hi Chris,
The Check Gauges says you should see where the voltmeter is reading and also the oil and temp gauges. I would suggest that you take the ignition key and turn the switch "on-off-on-off-on and leave it on" doing that in 5 seconds or less elapsed time. Then watch the check Engine light which will be "on" to begin to flash, pause, flash, etc. Count the number of flashes before each pause. Then do the same thing again until you have an accurate count of the flashes. Then group the counts in pairs in the order of appearance to form two-digit fault codes. Then write back or go to www.allpar.com/fix/codes.html for a code list meaning.
Then we can go from there. Please do not use the "private" option if you write back as no one else can read and possibly profit from the effort. Also tell me what model of Lebaron you have.
Roland
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QUESTION: Car is a 1993 lebaron 3.0 v6. Code list was 12 and 55. Car was starting and running quite well Sunday, but when the A/C and headlights were turned on, the "check gages" light would turn on very dim and intermittently. A drive at night with A/C and headlights, caused the "Check gages" light to come on after about 4 miles, but this time it stayed lit. Car was still running O.K. Any suggestions on how to get rid of the "Check gages" light?
AnswerHi Chris,
I don't know what gauges you actually have in the car, but I suspect it is lighting up in relation to the output voltage of the alternator not being capable of keeping up with the voltage demands of the system. The lower the voltage is below par, the brighter will be the check gauges light.
This might be due to the alternator belt being glazed and slipping, or the tensioner not putting enough tension on the belt or to the alternator itself not working as well as it should or to the powertrain controller which regulates the voltage output of the alternator by means of oscillating the field coils of the laternator "off" and "on" to produce the appropriate average voltage output, or even possibly some component of the electrical system drawing more current than it is supposed to do.
With all those possibilities you need to have a bit of knowledge and test equipment to sort out exactly what the cause is. Do you have any electrical test equipment (a volt meter, a separate amp meter, and a resistive load device)? I could xerox the pages from the '92 or '94 manual and postal mail them to you. It might cost a couple of dollars to do that (10 cents per page that is copied plus postage) but you could reimburse me with unused 41 cent postage stamps after you get the pages. The other thing to do is go to an autoelectric repair shop and ask them to test the system and tell you what if anything is wrong. If you want the pages use the "thank and rate tab" and list a postal mailing address in the comments section.
Roland
