Chrysler Repair: 2000 Cherokee cranks but no spark, cam shaft, odometer

Question
Roland,
My Cherokee has 89,000 miles and has been perfect but I went out to go to work and it would not start.  It cranks over and never fires.  I checked for spark by pulling the coil rail and got nothing.  could the fly wheel sensor cause this?  or should I change my ignition module.  Thanks. Andy

Answer
Hi Andy,
I don't have specific knowledge of which engine might be in your vehicle. But I would first suspect an ignition sensor. It may have two: the crankshaft (that looks at the flywheel as you stated) and the cam shaft which may look at the cam sprocket (or possibly be in the distributor?). In any case, those are the more likely causes of a spark failure. If you can borrow a code reader then you could look for a fault code with a code reader. The crank would be 0320 and the cam 0340. The fault codes may display on your odometer. www.allpar.com/fix/codes.html has a list of possible ways to do a self-readout using the ignition switch. The '99 and newer Cherokee is stated to be "on-off-on-off-on and leave on" doing this slowly. Specifically, you wait for the check engine light to illuminiate as well as the odometer numbers to appear, then turn off, etc. The fourth "on" will then either show a code in the odometer window or "done" if there are no codes.
If you get some code other that the two I mentioned let me know and we'll go from there. However as stated in my expertise listing, I don't have any manuals for the Jeep so can only generalize about specific principles.
Roland