wrongfullyaccuzd

My girlfriend has a 2001 Stratus, only owner, and it has weird problems not 3 years later. Once it got cold this year (in like November), her car started doing funny things. We were driving to a movie one night and suddenly she says "I'm going zero miles per hour." Sure enough, her speedometer wasn't registering. Neither was her gas gauge. We stopped the car and she turned it off and on again and waited for something to register. It didn't, so we decided to drive back to her house and get my car. Suddenly, the speedometer jumped to 120 and back down to normal again. She says since then this has happened on 66 (the highway) a couple times. A couple days ago we were on our way somewhere and the needle was just going crazy, up and down, up and down. Right now it's resting just below zero, trying to go past it...at, effectively, ~200 mph.
Bad circuitry? Bad Dodge engineering? Bad luck? The cold? What's goin on?

aintyoboyfriend

It could be a bad connection to the speedometer cable, and could be caused by the bitter cold we have been having lately.

does it correct itself as the car warms up? If not, it probably isn't a bad connection.

james t kirk

Uh oh.

Electrical problems.

Here's what will probably happen.

You will take it to the shop and they will take a stab at it since the electrical systems on cars are so convoluted now that you have to have a Phd in electrical engineering to read the circuit diagram.

You will come and pick up the car and they will hand you a bill for 500 bucks and tell you that they replaced the "module"

3 days later you will have the same problem occur again.

You will take it back to the dealer who will give you that "Gee, it must be more than we thought look"

They will take the car back in and once again, take a stab at it.

You will come back and this time they will tell you that they replaced the entire computer and the bill is now $1,200. You will ask about the last 500 you spent 3 days ago and they will tell you that the module was defective too.

You will go home and the next morning the problem will occur again.

You will then proceed to blow your stack and drive at 80 MPH back to the dealership whereupon they will call the "Service Rep" from Chrysler.

5 days later the service rep will show up and listen to your story and tell you that the car has been abused, or has been exposed to moisture and that it is all your fault.

They will suggest you take the car to another dealer who is an "expert" in electrical repairs.

But they won't offer to give you any of your money back because the car was scanned and was indicating these problems.

You will take your car to the other dealer who again will take a stab at the problem.

He may or may not find the problem.

In the end, someone will figure that there is a bad ground somewhere, take off the connector, pass a piece of sand paper over the terminals and everything will work.

But you will still be out $2,000.

Hope this helps.

DEI37

Most likely, the instrument cluster itself is at fault. Check to make sure the car isn't still under factory warranty...I forget what the warranty was on 2001 ChryCo vehicles.

__________________
Generally speaking, if you were to get what you really deserve, you might be unpleasantly surprised.

shakran

Damn! You hit the nail right on the head! Electrical problems are a goldmine for mechanics because they rarely know enough to fix it properly, and the customer NEVER knows enough about the electrical system to know they're being ripped off. That's why one of my friend's mechanics hates me. He was screwing my friend over with an electrical problem, and I brought in the electrical service manual and told him how to fix it and how much it should cost. He was PISSED.

Confederate

i had a problem with my computer at one point and it caused the needle to jump around

wrongfullyaccuzd

james t kirk you kind of worried me...she dropped the car off tonight at the Dodge place, we'll see what happens. If she gets stuck with a $500 bill and a crappy explanation, I'll warn her. Thanks.

wrongfullyaccuzd

OK...this is what has happened so far step by step, on the money...in a couple hours we're going to pick up the car, we'll see what happens.
I assume it will be the next thing james t kirk said. The confidence I have in this happening is scary.

Scorps

I remember last time I had a prob;lem with my cluster was because of a short, but that involved having a new cluster put in....I would say talk to the dealer that sold her the car, that way they can check to see if maybe there has been a re-call for that problem!

__________________
A.K.A. PainTrain

irseg

I know a lot of older (up until early 90s or so) Fords used a power supply that reduced the gauge cluster power from 12 to 5 volts, the voltage regulator would always crap out and make the gauges do weird stuff like that. My guess would be either that if it has a similar setup, or a bad ignition switch. Sometimes they'll short inside which can cause very odd behavior.

MSD

Here's the easiest solution:

1: Find a high-crime area where cars routinely disappear
2: Remove all personal beongings from the car
3: Park the car in the location found you in step 1, leave the doors unlocked and the keys in the ignition. Make sure to remove house keys from the keychain and burn any papers with identification information on them.
4: Collect insurance money and buy a car made by another manufacturer to ensure that some other, fun problem will occur, not the same problem.

Scorps

Thats almost like that episode from Seinfeld when his car smells really bad.

__________________
A.K.A. PainTrain

james t kirk

LOL,

God, that's the fucking truth too. Problem is is that the thieves wouldn't want that car.

I wish that someone would steal my buick. How i hate that car.