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Please help: electrical problems with '97 Intrepid

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4K views 8 replies 8 participants last post by  thgreatn 
#1 ·
Thanks for reading...any ideas you can suggest is greatly appreciated. As a near broke student who knows very very little about cars, I need to try and resolve at least a few of these problems for as cheap as possible.

Here's some of the problems I am having at this point in time with my '97 Intrepid, 3.3L V6, 170,000 miles

Speedometer jumps all over the place, sometimes staying pinned even while driving (not actually doing the speed shown, but adding mileage to the odometer as though it were)

Wipers going on by themselves, not able to shut them off for a few passes. Have to pull the fuse out on sunny days.

Transmission is jerky and jumpy at times. Twice while driving on the highway (70mph) have had my foot on the gas and the car won't register it, starts to jerk and decrease in speed down to about 50mph and then eventually will catch again when I wait a bit and then floor it.

Air bag light sometimes comes on and when it does the power windows will not operate and the fan/AC won't work!?! Can sometimes get the air bag light off by jiggling the key around in the ignition.

Check engine light comes on.

Did the "key dance" and got a whole slew of numbers. Not sure how accurate they were because the pauses that are supposed to occur between each code were no longer than the pauses between individual digits of the same code. So I unhooked the battery to reset it, took the car for a short drive, which at this time the speedometer, rpm, and fuel gauges did not move from zero/empty; the lights indicating which gear I was in were all illuminated; and it seems that the car will not shift now out of low low gear even when I accelerate. I'm afriad I'm going to mess up the transmission for good and I certainly can't afford a new one of those.

When I checked the codes again, I first got 12, 66, 66, 55. Then did it again right away to make sure and got 1 2 6 1 4 6 6 5 5. So I don't know if the 1 4 part was actually supposed to be a 6??? But there was definitley a slight pause between the 1 and 4.

From researching on the net, someone else had a problem with code 66 and the respondent mentioned PCM, TCM, BCM, and a CCD Bus. What I really would like to know is, what kind of deductive reasoning can I use to eliminate some of those and narrow it down to the culprit (if it is just one causing the problem). I don't even know where to look on the car to find all of these modules and to my utter dismay, I don't have a manual for the vehicle either.

Any questions or suggestions? What happened to the good old days when cars just had belts and motors, now they are all big computers. Call me a conspiracy theorist, but would it not be possible, if a car is run by a computer, to program it to fail on certain instruments at a given mileage? Sayyyy...just as the warranty expires. I'm not really that bitter...just frustrated. Thanks for your help.
 
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#4 ·
<<Standard spring-time electical problem question to follow>>

Any chance you've pressure washed the engine comparment lately?
 
#8 ·
I am having similar problems on my 94 trep. Wipers turn on by themselves, the passenger side window doesn't come up right away after I put it down. The gauges dont regisgter right away most of the time, and when they do decide to register, If I happen to be driving and not at a dead stop the car will buck like hell. Mechanic said it was the ECU. I haven't changed it b/c I am not to confident with his diagnosis. Anyone else care to weigh in.
 
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