Electrical issues

Help me out gents; I am deployed right now and my wife told me the lights were flashing at her from the driveway (parked w/ no one in it), it had been going on for a couple days or so. She went to start the truck and the wipers went crazy on her, squirting uncontrollably; she had to hold the washer button in while the truck ran to keep it from squirting. Once she shut it off, the lights continued to flash intermittently. After a couple days the batteries were dead. I told her to disconnect the batteries until she could get the tow truck over to the house to get it down to the dealership. I had done some research on my service manual from my room and thought the only thing it could be was the FCM.



Finally she got it down to the dealership, they replaced both batteries and the FCM. Just a soon as she pulled out of the parking lot, the truck decided to start cleaning its windshield without being asked. She turned it right around and dropped it off again. Not sure if the lights were still flashing, it was day time when she picked it up and didnt look at the lights.



Its a helpless feeling when I am not home and this crap happens, I dont want to take it up the derriere by the dealer. Any Ideas on what may be going on?#@$%!

 

Sounds like there's a short in the control stem in the steering collum..... it controls all those aspects. A piece of metal, broken from inside, or moisture condensed in it, could cause that. I had a '91 that the wipers would work intermittently on, and the bright lights wouldn't come on. The lights would just go off when you switched them. It never activated the windshield washers, but the wipers would come on at random. I took it apart and cleaned it, and that fixed it for the next 200,000 miles..... I sold it and never had another problem... ... .

 

Well the dealership called back and stated that the power/turbo timer wires from the edge module to the fuse block were the problem and they would have to disconnet it. They proceeded to tell me I was wrong for connecting it the way I did; so i proceeded to send the instructions along with the full color photograph of it. They recinded.



Yesterday they called again and this time they are claiming it is the instrument cluster... any thoughs on that diagnosis?



My problem with this is that they are throwing parts at it instead of diagnosing it properly. I already told them I wasnt paying for the FCM since it didnt fix the problem; now they are contacting chrysler to see if they can get it covered under warranty.

 

These Types of problems are Very,Very difficult. Yes it May be the IC,Generally we find some type of interference with this type of issue. Again when the IC fails the ABS/and brake Light appear,these circuits are PCI connect and are sensitive to interruption.

 

To my knowledge, the ABS/Brake light are not illuminating. Could this be a good excuse to get my Mega Cab?!

 

YEP. . just make sure its a 5. 9 Mega cab. We have had to remove the Attitude do to similar issue. Make all the Attitudes wiring is loom covered.

 

The first thing I would have done would be to pull the power enhancements to ensure that wasn't the cause... there are loads of threads regarding that type of interference.

I had a faulty guage cluster (and a bad wiring harness) cause similar issues (no lights or washers, but radio, interior lights, etc). I was told the cluster houses the body control module, so the entire cluster gets replaced to replace that module. I do not know what harness they replaced... it only cost $29 and I assume it was one they compromised to test connectivity.

Make sure its either under warranty OR that you tell them you are only paying for the fix... they threw parts at mine for a week, each time claiming it was the "fix", and ended up costing me well over $1000 for a $500 repair.