rev up your engines, today I'm gonna talk
about a common problem that happens all the time, this vehicle runs fine and then
it just stops running, then it starts right up again, happens on highway, happens in
town it happens pretty infrequently, so let's
get going now, just guessing on a vehicle like this is totally futile, so we need
some serious information, out with the big scan tool, we're gonna need some serious
information on this thing hooking it up is simple, you just turn the key
on so it's on the on position, but not running, then plug it into the data port
which is under the dash right here, and this launch is Wireless so, push the Dodge
and we'll start out, now it can take a while because there's an awful lot of
information that's stored in the computer that we're gonna have to look
at, because let's face it in the olden days
something that would die maybe once a month or once every couple of months it was
pretty much impossible to track down but with this modern technology we get a
lot better idea of what system can be breaking down, but now it's figured out
what vehicle this is so I'll push okay and start analyzing stuff, system scan,
the first thing we're checking for are obvious trouble codes, it probably won't
have any but you always you have to check that first, because you always
check the obvious things when trying to figure out why a car acts up every once
in a while, it's doing its thing it's 37% done and it hasn't found any codes yet, oh
there's one now, in this case even though the check engine isn't on, there's
trouble code stored, so just because your check engine light isn't on doesn't
mean that there's not codes that a mechanic can access, and now it's done
it's a typical Chrysler it's got 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 23 separate fault codes, now we gotta analyze all these codes and break them
down to see which one could make the vehicle actually stop running, typical
Chrysler it's got a whole bunch of problems, but a lot of them are ancillary
stuff, doors, the gate, the radio, the main thing we're gonna be looking at is the
body control module, because that controls all kinds of things in the
vehicle, well the body control code was for the front fog lamps, oh well it's not bad either, so here we go
none of those codes that a mechanic can get with a fancy tool is gonna help us
figure out why the stupid thing died, now we got to be logical and think, what's
gonna make a vehicle conk out, well now comes the fun of looking through all the
data on a vehicle to see if there's any bad data using my mechanics brain, so we
have to go through all these things to see if any data is really offline, well
that was a lot of information and made it all the way to the w to washer fluid
and that was fine, couldn't find anything that had bad data, so none of the data is
off, but of course all is not lost this thing can check systems to see when
there was a Fault and it actually found that it did have a triggered fault, and
it says triggers fault caused by the programming, and being a Dodge that
doesn't surprise me, they have computer problems up the wazoo
as they age, the customer told me that this thing was going down the road working
fine, then it just died going 60, but then it
started right back up again, it's more a classic sign of something's gone wrong
in the computer system, it can also be a weak fuel pump, so I pressure tested that
and it shows perfectly fine now but I kind of figured out because it's running
perfectly fine, and anyways if the fuel pump went bad and it died on the highway, it
wouldn't start right back up again, now to be absolutely sure my diagnosis of
course, I would have to drive this thing with the computer scanner hooked up
until it actually died, I'm gonna try that for half an hour but let's face it,
nobody's gonna be paying the $100 an hour to drive this thing around if it happens
once a month or once every three months that's going a little bit too far, but
now I'm using even more brain power, I'm looking up every technical service
bulletin for this crazy thing and here's one it says, recall alternator may fail
resulting in engine stalling, now I did test the alternator with my machine it
shows it's okay now, but when you ever recall like that it can be that it stops
working it starts work and it's electronic, so I'm gonna have to
customer take it in and see if they'll give him a free alternator at Dodge, I
printed a copy of this recall notice and I can hand it to my customer, the main thing
you need is the campaign number but the whole piece of paper explains the whole
recall on the alternators that you can show to the dealer, now being a
professional mechanic I use all data repair to get all this information, but
of course you can get all recall notifications from the NHTSA website, as
you can see here you just put your vehicle identification number in and you
could look up any vehicle you have here in the United States, it's been three weeks
the customer called me, the dealer gave him an alternator for free, said the old
one was breaking down which makes sense if you don't have enough electricity to
run the ignition of the fuel system, it can knock all the computers out and the car will
stop running, but I do have to say I'm not holding my breath on that one, it is
a nine year old Dodge and it had all those different trouble codes in it, I
wouldn't be surprised at all if there was also something wrong with the
computer system of the car that was starting to break down, I see that an
awful lot in the Dodge products especially when they have all those
different trouble codes, a lot of times it means the main circuit board is
starting to break down inside the computer, but let's hope that it's a
permanent fix that will last for a long time and the
stupid thing won't just stop running in the middle of nowhere for something that
no one can actually figure out the reason underlying that death, so if you
never want to miss another one of my new car repair videos, remember to ring that
Bell!
