EVERYONE: Be careful of junkyard BCM's and PCM's.

Hello everyone,

I feel I should post this message for everyone out there. When working
on any Chrysler vehicle 1996 and newer; be very careful of trying
junkyard or computers from another vehicle. Many people make this
mistake, and it can be extremely costly. A good rule to go by is: If
you vehicle does not have a factory theft system in it, do not take
the chance of plugging a used powertrain control module or body
control module into your car. What will happen is, the computer will
transmit a set of codes to the other computer, and contaminate the
other one. It confuses the other computer, and your car wont start.
The codes will be burned in to the microprocessor of the computer.
Unfortunately, the only way to correct this situation once it happens
is to replace the PCM and BCM together as a fresh pair, either
remanufactured or new from MOPAR. I know this to be a fact, because I
talk to people every day that make this mistake. People, please be
aware, and save yourself some headaches and a LOT of money! The
junkyard is very tempting, but be very careful. Any questions on this,
e-mail me at:



Bill

 

And let me chime in here - people, the problem you are having is
MOST LIKELY NOT THE COMPUTER!!

Auto computers are pretty tough little critters. They have to survive
high vibration and garbage power. Unfortunately since (it appears)
few techs seems to understand them, they regard them as 'black boxes'
and if there's a problem the tech cannot figure out, their immediate
impulse is to assume "I don't understand it so it must be bad"

One of the fundamentals is Garbage In, Garbage Out. Bad sensor
inputs are going to make a car computer behave screwy, and that's
a fact. There's lots of people on EBay who are trying to sell extra
car computers they bought, assuming the computer in their car is bad,
then they swap it and the problem doesen't go away. Don't be one
of them.

And in a reliability contest between electronics and mechanicals,
electronics are going to win most of the time. Your electrical
connections in the vehicle are mechanical connections, not electronic.
Vibration shakes them apart.

You should always look at the computer as the LAST thing to test.

Ted

 

Thanks for the advice. What sensors would cause my door locks to unlock and
lock randomly whether its running or not or moving or not. The baby got
locked in the car the other day and just before the cops got there the
locks unlocked by themselves. We always use the key fob to unlock the
doors and use either the driver's door switch or the fob to lock them so I
don't think the disarm switches attached to the door cylinder locks are the
problem but I could be wrong.

 

nice try ted but you are dead wrong
the bcm's in that generation of van are well known for all sorts of issues
and you need to stop speading shit around you know nothing about

 

I don't know on a Chrysler - but the range control switch on the trans
on my brother's Taurus went bad, and made the radio misbehave, the
wipers to misbehave, and several other seamingly totally unrelated
items. New switch - no more "gremlins"

 

You are a fucking retard, asshole. You yourself just posted this 6 minutes
earlier:

"take it in it just might be a bad connection but you won't know until
fault
codes are pulled from the bcm"

So if bcm's are so bad like you say, then why did you tell him it might be a
bad connection? Why didn't you just tell him to just replace the bcm? You
told
him exactly what I told him, check the computer LAST, fuckhead.

Now go crawl under your rock.

Ted

 

"Soccer Dad" posted today with the same problem, was told to have disarm
switches
checked, same as you were told by "danmnickname"

Once you have the dealer fix it, tell us what the problem was.

Ted