Door locking up without cause

96 Chrysler Concorde LXi 3.5 V6, 150 000 km. I am driving with all doors unlocked. While driving once in a while the system locks up the doors. It happens once every few weeks, sometime it happens twice within a couple of minutes. Does anybody know what causes that ? I am asking because I have some other electrical problems and suspect the problems might be related somehow.

 

Hello All, How do I find "The real" Technical Service Bulletin so I could read it ?

 

One more thing regarding my original post - occasionally engine has "hiccup" or even stalls. When battery is cold (morning) and I turn the ignition key on and wait for the bulb check to go out, than I crank the engine - I noticed that the "check engine" light illuminates until the engine runs. The only error codes are 12 and 55.

 

More observations: - after bulb check terminates and all bulbs are out when I turn the key to START, the red parking brake bulb illuminates immediately again (full brightness, the parking brake is OFF) following by a fraction of a second later by yellow Check Engine and green Cruise bulbs (no cruise engaged), although the last two not the full brightness. All go out after the engine starts and the key is no longer in START position.

 

For many years I’ve struggled with engine intermittent stalls/hesitations/jerky acceleration. One by one, I’ve replaced all engine sensors (including Idle Air Motor), checked for all possible Vacuum Leaks, replaced the spark plugs and ignition wires, checked primary and secondary ignition coil circuits, cleaned up the throttles twice, checked fuel pressure 5 times, had injectors cleaned up, tested EGR system etc.. It looks like my new car mechanic finally found out what the engine problem was. Since then my 155 000 km car engine has NEVER been running so smoothly. I do not know if I tipped off the mechanic by describing the symptoms or he found it out anyway. Among the things I told him was that sometimes the coolant temperature gauge went from normal to cold and back up. It’s been 6 weeks since the mechanic fixed it and the problem seems to be gone (Chrysler dealer could not find the cause – “Monsieur, your car is old”).

There was an electrical (intermittent?) short between the coolant temperature sensor and the main computer ( PCM/ECU ). The mechanic made a new direct connection between the sensor and the ECU. He also replaced the ECU, just in case it got damaged – and the ECU replacement cost me an arm and a leg. For the SECOND time the ECU had to be replaced – the first time when the car was about 60 000 km old (about 12 years old) – all of a sudden, the radiator cooling fans were constantly on. I am wondering if this was caused by the short described above.

No more engine error code 12 – “ECU thinks the battery was disconnected during the last 50 engine start ups”.

So I would describe my 96 Chrysler Concorde 3.5 L LXi as follow: body and paint – very good, powertrain – good (had coolant leak at the lower intake manifold, engine mounts replaced), main brakes – very good, parking brake – total crap (hardly holds at all, no matter what parts you replace and how many adjustments different mechanics do), steering and tie rods – so-so, front suspension ball joints – no good (replaced at 55 000 km), electrical – total disaster (many different problems, not just described above – the things that did not go wrong are the starter and the alternator). Also, replacement of any front light bulb is a nightmare – you have to dismantle about 15 % of the car front to get access to any front bulb. How could anyone design a car like that? Apparently, some people in Detroit can.