electrical gremlins!!@!@#!!

nineball · Post by **nineball** » Wed Feb 10, 2010 9:24 pm

my 05 SXT was acting very strange today. none of the following items have ever happened before.

after starting i no longer get the normal chimes but all of the lights on the dash light up as normal while starting. once operating every light works normal except the seat belt.

the seat belt light works when starting but once i am moving even with no belts buckled the light is not on when it normally is while unbuckled.

the alarm system seems to be locking the doors automatically when i leave the car. the alarm is not armed but the doors are locked. luckily i had a friend in the passenger seat who could unlock the door when i stopped out for gas. normally this would not be a problem as i take the keys with me but now that it is happening i am positive at some point i will forget them inside and be locked out.

the inside door lock button does not always work. i was testing it when i noticed the lock problem above and 4/5 pushes worked but starting with the 5th and all after the button would do nothing (car off, keys out, sitting in the driver's seat). i had to turn the ignition on and off again to get it to start working after the 5th try.

when trying to arm the alarm sometimes it takes a few pushes on the keyfob, sometimes just the usual single. when it does not work on the first push nothing works - no beep, no locking doors, no flashing lights. the alarm seems to function normally once armed, and once armed the lights flash as normal when disarming it.

when arming the alarm a few times it sounded as if the horn was somehow muffled, sometimes it sounded normal. it sounded normal every time i hit the horn on the wheel.

anyone have any ideas?

darthroush · Post by **darthroush** » Thu Feb 11, 2010 12:24 am

Sounds like a lot of the issues are related to the alarm? Did a shop install it?

nineball · Post by **nineball** » Thu Feb 11, 2010 10:32 am

no, the factory did. it is not aftermarket.

nineball · Post by **nineball** » Thu Feb 11, 2010 4:05 pm

it gets even more weird...

everything was back to normal this morning and for most of the day. i drove to a friends place, parked in the drive and came back out 20 mins later. now the lights and chimes are back but none of the gauges are working and the CE light is on. in addition to that the driver's door lock button is not working at all. my dad has my reader so i won't know what it says until tomorrow (if the damn thing is still even on). this is driving me nuts.

nineball · Post by **nineball** » Fri Feb 12, 2010 7:15 pm

i have come to the realization that my car is possessed by a demon. there can be no other logical explanation for what is happening.

now i am getting all sorts of strange things happening and it is all related to the driver door lock button. sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. at one point today it was operating in reverse (up = lock), another time when i pushed down it would do nothing but DOOR would momentarily flash on the odometer, another time when i pushed down the dome light would come on and then slowly fade similar to arming the alarm. i also found out that is it not the alarm but for some reason as soon as i open the drivers door it automatically locks itself - none of the other doors, just the driver. the passenger side still works normally and all lock respond to it and the key fob.

hopefully nothing drastic happens in the next few weeks so i can rip apart the door and see what it going on. i am hoping that somehow a wire got caught or something like that.

Panhead · Post by **Panhead** » Fri Feb 12, 2010 8:30 pm

Did this started to happen before or after the install?

nineball · Post by **nineball** » Fri Feb 12, 2010 9:03 pm

not sure what install you are talking about but this just started on wednesday. if you mean the audio install that was finished around september or maybe even earlier. i really don't think it is related but i won't rule anything out until i find the cause of the problem.

Panhead · Post by **Panhead** » Sat Feb 13, 2010 12:02 am

Sound like there is a short somewhere that is causing this to happen. Time to take stuff apart...

Craz1000 · Post by **Craz1000** » Mon Feb 22, 2010 11:39 pm

nine check your RKE module

nineball · Post by **nineball** » Tue Feb 23, 2010 12:39 am

Craz1000 wrote:nine check your RKE module

i'd love to. tell me how

nineball · Post by **nineball** » Fri Mar 05, 2010 3:12 pm

finally got a code - U110C-NO FUEL LEVEL BUS MESSAGE. the bad part is that the results of searching have proved to be anything but helpful. solutions ranged from loose wires, bad grounds, bad pcm, bad fuel pump, bad fuses, bad cluster and a host of other items.

strangely this does not explain the problem with the lock. in addition to that the driver's door now locks as soon as it is opened but the switch is still not functioning.

it is supposed to be above 40 tomorrow so i will spend some time checking everything i can (fuses, wires, connections) but i don't have a lot of hope.

Mopar_Country · Post by **Mopar_Country** » Fri Apr 16, 2010 6:38 pm

I dont know if your still having this issue or not. But I am currently in the same boat as I am swapping over a complete R/T interior into my SRT swap.

Im sitting there swapping stuff over or adjusting things and the doors are locking and unlocking on their own and the modual on the the center of the dash is clicking everytime it locks.

When it comes to electrical stuff like this it can be a pain, I have narrowed mine down to both front doors.

If you want, try unplugging the door lock switch, it seems like the contacts are bad on your switch possibly causing it to short. If that does not fix it. then Open your drivers door all the way, remove the rubber hose from the door jamb ( Drivers door harness goes in here.)

peal back the rubber on the jamb, not the door, there are 4 clips holding it to the jamb, once you remove those pull the harness out and undo the lock and pull the main harness off the door harness.

Inspect both plugs for corrosion on the pins and connectors, this will cause alot of issues. Shorts, intermittent working.

I have found a few corroded connectors on my passenger door due to moisture and the same on the drivers door, once i unplugged both doors the locks dont act up.

Also moisture and corrosion could be at the door lock actuator. Once moisture gets in the lock and latch assembly it can cause problems as well. Im still trying to narrow mine down to which door is causing the issue.

If you find any water in the connectors or any corrosion, remove corrosion and completely dry out the connectors, apply a small amount of dieelectric grease or a silicone paste to the connector to help prevent any moisture from causing the same problem again.

Hope this helps

Matt

andrewh530 · Post by **andrewh530** » Sat Jun 05, 2010 4:52 pm

okay, sorry to bump but seeing as how noone here has told you what to do to fix it....I will, Find someone with a DRBIII and plug in the 7090 cable [red top]. Go the "bus" and check voltages if there both between 1.5 -2.8 volts there fine, just reset the codes from the computer with a DRBIII....and then drive it around, it should fix it, thats what I had to do to mine....i reset it with a standard snap-on tool and it came back, reset with DRBIII and it went away, most likely because the DRBIII was made for the CANBUS system and others can use it but are not as efficient....

nineball · Post by **nineball** » Sat Jun 05, 2010 7:35 pm

i have come to the conclusion that my car doesn't like winter. once the temps warmed back up everything went back to normal and has stayed that way. now i'll just wait til the fall/winter and solve the problem if/when it comes back.

LilSparkPlug · Post by **LilSparkPlug** » Sun Jun 06, 2010 3:53 pm

Neons aren't CANBUS......

andrewh530 · Post by **andrewh530** » Mon Jun 07, 2010 2:06 am

Okay I'm sorry, your right the PL uses J1850 which is a bus communication system but not CAN BUS, The 65+ PT had the can bus system implemented, but by then the PL was gone...Sorry, My mistake...but my ruling stands with the bus system, check it out for proper operation, mine had this problem and thats what went wrong....Thank you Lil' Sparkplug for the correction....

Post by **occasional demons** » Mon Jun 07, 2010 9:45 am

PCI bus to be specific.

It is prolly somewhere in the communication between the RKE, and the cluster.

nineball · Post by **nineball** » Wed Jan 12, 2011 11:19 pm

like clockwork, colder temps and snow hit and the problems come back. locks started acting up yesterday and today my cluster was dead again - not a single moving needle. time to start ripping the doors apart... again...

never did find out what was causing this.

NeonFlash · Post by **NeonFlash** » Thu Jan 13, 2011 9:42 pm

I agree the car is POSSESSED LoL

Post by **occasional demons** » Thu Jan 13, 2011 10:34 pm

nineball wrote: not a single moving needle.

I am going to have to go with a bad ground/power to/in the cluster. The fuel gauge should work even without the PCI bus. It is the one gauge that does not get it's signal via the bus. It sends data to the PCM for low fuel/misfire monitor cancel, but the signal is old school.

Cluster pinouts

The '03 up are the same as the '02. (From what I could tell by comparing the '04 FSM to Dante's list.)

nineball · Post by **nineball** » Fri Jan 14, 2011 11:54 am

thanks for the suggestion but i really doubt it's the cluster pinouts. not only did i heck them last year but if that was the problem it would have surfaced before the cold/snow got here. not to mention the cluster seems to have nothing to do with the other problems i am experiencing:

- driver's side door lock button will not work with the car on

- at certain times while driving and testing the driver's side lock the interior dome light will come on while pressing down on the lock button

- the cluster will occasionally flash DOOR OPEN when pressing down on the driver's lock button

- when opening the door from the outside it will immediately lock as soon as it is opened (which cause me all sorts of hell when the doors lock with the keys in the ignition)

so basically my car seems to be screwed until spring again. on the bright side i will probably only have 1 or 2 more winters in a neon to deal with this hassle.

Post by **occasional demons** » Fri Jan 14, 2011 12:21 pm

So you're moving to a warmer climate?

nineball · Post by **nineball** » Fri Jan 14, 2011 1:07 pm

hehe

naaa, just no more neons. i have had 3 now as work cars over the past decade+ (95, 98, 05) because they were cheap, usually reliable and had decent gas mileage. since they are no longer in production once my 05 hits 100k it goes out the door and replaced with another car for work. i do 15-20k a year and my 05 (bought 11-07 with 9k miles) currently has around 63k, so around the beginning of 2013 it will be replacement time.