31 October 2007

Arrrrgh!!!!

Last night I drove the Aries in to work. It performed flawlessly all the way there. This morning I go out to start it to go home and the motor spins over but won't start. I have spark and I have fuel, but the motor won't start.

To add to the confusion, I don't have a power loss light any more so I can't pull the engine codes. The last time the power loss light didn't work the logic module was fried, so I'm worried that it's going to need another one.

This afternoon my eldest son and I go to fetch the car. I figure that the last time the computer went I was able to do a full throttle start and at least get the car home, so I'm going to try that again.

I try the full throttle start and to my complete amazement the power loss light flickers on and the motor tries to start. I then try a regular (no throttle) start and the motor starts, runs roughly for a few seconds, then cuts back off. Several starts later the motor finally stays running, and the longer it runs the smoother the idle gets.

I get the car home, and once more it's running beautifully. I wonder if the temp sensors are going bad, but yesterday morning the car started fine and it was colder yesterday than it was this morning.

Of course, yesterday night the car cut out on me again and I had to disconnect and reconnect everything to get it to start again. I changed the coil on it on my way home from work yesterday morning, so hopefully that problem is fixed. It probably is, since the next problem doesn't crop up until I get the current one solved. And like I said, it ran flawlessly all the way in.

What I hate most of all is an intermittant problem because they are so hard to track down. Tomorrow I'll pull all the connectors apart and check them out, that's another common Dodge problem.

I'm glad today is a day off.

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