Camshaft and Crankshaft Sensors?

Oh MY.
Sorry to hear it is acting up again.
I take it you are trying another dealer than the first one.
The Co-Pilot is nice tool and may help catch the problem.
But I would suggest.
You make sure they are putting a good trained tech on it to.
Tip on going to the dealer
Ask that only a factory certified gasoline engine performance
specialist work on your car.
Not all dealerships are concerned with how repairs are dispatched, and
not all dealership techs bother to take advantage of the training
offered by factory (the vast majority of which is paid training). If
the dealer is uncooperative, ask for your money back and call around
for a dealer that will accommodate you.

Good Luck and let us know how it goes.
MT

 

Yes, I am.

I used that exact phrase-- 'factory certified gasoline engine
performance specialist' and asked when he could see my car. They said
tomorrow. So tomorrow it is.

I'm taking odds that they'll tell me it's a crankshaft position sensor
and that I'm going to have the Chrysler tech install a Mopar branded
one. Anybody want to bet against it? LOL.

 

If they are going to put a good trained tech on it.
It is standard procedure for them to start with there own diagnostic.
I would let them have at it.
The co pilot is used for finding very intermittent problems that only
show up at times.
It is very a useful tool for the customer to have when it acts up.
It can record the PCM data frames when the problem happens.
But as they said it is sometimes the last resort or as they said they
will use it if needed.
That sounds like a good deal to me.
Good luck and let us know how it goes.
MT

 

You are starting all over again with another dealer therefore they will
start from scratch.

Glenn

 

No, the dealership I went to last week said their equipment doesn't
generate code numbers, only things like "defective O2 sensor".

I'm bringing my memory stick with me tomorrow as Glenn has previously
suggested.

 

You are going to a new dealer, let them decide what and how they will
attempt to fix your vehicle, A good technician wont need to use the co-pilot
if he/she knows what he is doing and knows how to use the DRB scan tool. You
are having a problem with a crank circuit. It is cut and dry!!!
As far as fault codes, that year doesn't give a P code out, and as I said
before. You cannot rely on cycling the key to retrieve fault codes .

Glenn

 

My only suggestion would be to actually let them fix the problem they
diagnose. If they diagnose a bad sensor and then you go get some
aftermarket part and install it they have no ownership of the problem
if that doesn't fix it. You could be getting cruddy sensors, It could
be some silly little something you aren't noticing when you install
the sensor or it could be a gazillion other unrelated problems but
unless they install the new sensor they will never diagnose past that
point.

Steve B.

 

OK, I gathered as much from the links posted by MT-2500. I'm not going
to go in there and demand that they work on it a certain way. However,
if they can't get the car to exhibit the problem, is it reasonable for
me to suggest that they hook up the Co-Pilot and let me take the
vehicle and drive it around (to save on diagnostic charges?)

 

Believe me, I'm so sick of this problem, I'm about ready to have them
jack up the radiator cap and slide another vehicle underneath it!

Installation is very simple, I don't think I could screw it up.
Remove the air filter box for easier access and the sensor has only one
10 mm bolt and a 2-pronged wiring connector. If they say it's the
crankshaft sensor, they're replacing it with a gen-you-whine Mopar
part. Heck, if they say the windshield washer fluid is low, I'm letting
them handle the install!

 

Yes that is what is is for.
It is made to hook up to the car and let the customer drive it un till
the problem happens and the the customer can push the button and get a
recording of data at the time it happens.
Then the dealer can play back the recording and hope fully or usually
it shows the problem.
The data from it may not be quite as good as the dealer DRB11 scan tool
but it gets the data when the problem happens.
It sounds like they are going to work with you on the problem and we
hope they get it.
Good luck

 

ask for a refund! they did not fix it

 

Yet another update.

I took the vehicle to another dealership yesterday. On the way into the
dealership the car stumbled several times, dying three times, all three
times at speeds below 10 mph and while slowing down for a stop.

At the service desk I asked for the factory certified gasoline engine
performance specialist and the service writer said they have three
people that fit that description, although they call them
"drivability diagnostic specialists" and that one of them would get
my job. I also left them with my (now) full page description of
symptoms, attempted fixes, and my experience with the other dealership.

The car wouldn't exhibit the problem while hooked up to their scan
tool, so they took it out for a test drive. They put on about 20 miles
and they did get the vehicle to stumble and even to die out on them one
time. However, hooking up the scan tool showed there were no stored
codes. They decided to keep the car overnight and attempt to test drive
it again from a cold start to warm-up condition, the technique that
always seems to work for me. They did that this morning, and got the
car to die again after it was warmed up--after about 8 miles of
driving. There were no stored codes.

The service writer called me and told me they were going to hook up the
Co-Pilot and let me take the vehicle for the weekend. He said they
needed to get 2 instances of the vehicle showing the problem.
Regardless of how many times I captured a problem with Co-Pilot or how
quickly I got the failure he explained they were going to charge me for
an hour of shop time, or $107.00 I countered with the idea of leaving
it overnight, hooking up the Co-Pilot in the morning and having the
drivability specialist take it out for the usual 10-15 minutes that it
takes to have the car exhibit the problem, then if they got codes, the
car could be repaired and I would have my car back in time for the
weekend. I preferred this over driving the thing for three days in lame
mode. He agreed to my plan.

Question: The first place I took it to (not a Dodge dealer, but an
independent shop) said he had the car fail while hooked up to his scan
tool and it didn't get any error codes. Could this happen with the
Co-Pilot? Could the car fail and Co-Pilot wouldn't record anything?

 

If the problem happens to fast to set a fault code they will have to have
the scan tool set to pick up a secondary indicator while driving.... If the
PCM is crapping out this may be the reason why no codes have been set. Have
you ever tried tapping on the PCM with a small hammer when the vehicle is
hot to see if it stumbles? This is also a common problem when the PCM is
going out. Another symptom of that would be the key counter will always set
back to 0 starts when you go to check for fault codes with the DRB
This probably makes no sense to you but the person working on it should know
this

Glenn

 

Actually in the TSB on the co-pilot I posted it says that the dealer
OBD11 scanner is better for testing and should show a little more than
the co-pilot.
The co-pilot is a tool for the customer to use at the time a hard to
find problem happens.

If it is doing it every morning I would let the dealer try to find it
with the cry DRB11 scanner.
But sometimes there is things that just not show up on a scanner.
Not setting a code is not good and makes it hard to find.
But it sounds like you have got it in good hands with that dealer.
Good luck and keep us posted.

 

No, I haven't. You mean something like a tack hammer? Or a small rubber
mallet?

The guy at the first Dodge dealer said that his tool was "showing a
code 54 from 20 starts ago. It's probably from when you replaced the
cam sensor." So that is a clue. Then again the guy at the first Dodge
dealership also said that their scan tool doesn't return numerical
codes, so it could be B.S. on his part.

 

Yep. About 10 seconds after I posted my question I recalled that from
the articles you posted. Thanks for not ripping me...

I've got a lot more confidence in this dealer. The no code being
generated is quite worrisome though.

 

You are getting things mixed up again, on that year vehicle you can not get
a P code from the engine controller. It spells out the code such as "Small
evaporative leak" where as on a newer vehicle that code would be something
like P0441. thats why i keep telling you that by cycling the key and
getting a 2 digit code such as 54 really means nothing and according to
Chrysler you cannot rely on that procedure on this year
Therefore it was not BS. and this is what happens when you talk to so many
different people

Glenn

 

Reread Glenn's post 97
Give the dealer a little time to sort it out.
Good work is just like good wine it takes time.

 

No. The co-pilot always records when the button is pressed. The
question you have to ask is, "could the car fail and the co-pilot not
record anything significant?"

The answer is yes, it could. However, that is very unlikely. Something
is making the engine stumble. For many reasons you can almost completely
rule out some failed mechanical thing. The problem is almost certainly in
the electronics of the vehicle, and that is what the co-pilot is designed to
diagnose.

No matter what happens, you will learn something with the co-pilot. Even
if all engine readings are normal up to the second that the engine dies,
that
also tells the experienced diagnostician quite a lot. Sometimes the absence
of
something happening is just as significant as the presence of something
happening. A mechanic that understands how to diagnose complex interrelated
systems will understand all of this and be able to use it to fix the car.
Unfortunately
it sounds like you haven't had anyone working on the car yet that did
understand
this.

Ted