andyb2000

Thanks for posting, this is something that needs doing on mine sooner rather than later. Did you get any symptoms before it went? Knocking noise, clunk when steering? (I'm getting a clunk when I steer beyond a certain point, which I suspect is it sticking and twisting on the spring rather than the joint)

Hm, Those codes don't make much sense unfortunately. Normally the codes are PXXXX where the X's are numeric digits. No dot in them or anything, so I'm really puzzled by the output you got. Perhaps try key dance again and make sure it's giving the same values. I'm assuming you've done the usual checks for water, oil, fluids, etc, and nothing seems amiss? Also is yours an automatic? Lots of downhill were you mainly using the brakes or did you force the auto box into low to use engine braking to help you?

It might not be as easy as that. First port of call, check the RDO/IP IGN fuse as shown in the attached as cripsinchurch as hopefully that's all it is. Next one to check would be the movable fuse marked 12V OUT IGN OR BATT, as some installers may choose this if they've bypassed the wiring harness to get around the amplifier or other components (and spliced into the power loom going down to the 12v lighter socket).

The expensive wiring harness I'm referring to isn't simply to switch the amplifier on, so just be cautious. On a couple of models I've worked on the audio is digitally encoded (or at least partially) from the RB3 stock head unit, and therefore pushing a standard analogue signal down these wires just won't do what you expect it to. (My full method was sitting with probes, an external audio generator, the RB3 head unit and dashboard apart. Testing without the RB3 attached, but amp powered on (i.e. disconnecting the audio leads only from the harness) and you cannot successfully supply all 4 channels of audio to the 'amp' as you would a normal head unit+amp setup. My conclusion is that Chrysler are using some form of digital encoding onto the BUS system of the car to supply. I've not yet taken apart one of the doors and looked at the speakers, nor found the amp in my 2005 (rb3) model but suspect somewhere along the line the BUS is getting involved and taking digital audio rather than analogue from the head unit - I'd like to be proved wrong, but so far nobody has conclusively solved this for all editions as they seem to change the technique almost on each car that rolled off the production line!)

Hi Steveky, This has been asked time and time again, so a search of the forums is generally a good place to start before a new topic. That said, it's the indicator for your auxiliary cabin heater. You must have a diesel version, that is the aux heater and illuminates when it's on/active. See this post: http://www.chryslerforum.co.uk/topic/363-what-is-this-dashboard-light/ For info and the image of the light to confirm this is what you're referring to.

Hi Argee, Just travelled home and checked my 2005 model 2.8CRD auto, engine idling (temperature gauge just below half after a 20 min drive as usual) and coolant fans weren't on (expected). Turned aircon down to LO and forced aircon on (star symbol) and after a minute both coolant fans do indeed come on. Turn aircon back up to normal temperature and after a minute the fans turn back off, so you are indeed correct that the aircon causes the fans to switch on. So I stand corrected, when aircon is switched on the coolant fans do indeed get triggered, so at least you have a positive way of testing the system out, so now you can check the trigger to the relay to see if it's getting the signal to switch the fans on, etc. (And don't need to try the jumpering method I mentioned either) Hope that helps a tiny bit more.

Aha, I've found a youtube video on this, which I suspect some of your info might have come from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AdIYm9kM5E0 That refers to an older model though, 1997 and he states in the video that he can turn the air con on to force the fans to run (that way testing the sense pin on the solid state relay in that case). However a lot of the detail in that video is also reproduced here: http://www.supremepundit.com/2013/12/how-to-fix-a-radiator-control-module-of-a-dodge-gland-caravan-2000-1999-1998-1997-1996-2001-2002-2003-2004/ Which includes your model I believe in the 2003-range. In the diagnostic images just before half way down the page it has information on testing, step 5 is the one I was referring to which is testing by jumpering the relay signal wire, however I'm not 100% on that element (and don't want a fried ECU!).

Hi Argee, Good call on the 12v (and also interesting point on the petrol v diesel, good thinking as I've seen this also and it has puzzled me many times before!) to the fans, so we know the fans themselves spin. I'm going to test the theory later on when aircon is switched on and cooling if the fans should come on, so will post back to compare notes then. So now it's back to wiring looms and potential ECU. Trick is, forcing the fans to come on, as without triggering the circuit for 'fans turn on' you can't be sure when testing. You've also tested the relays I see, when you say tested, continuity ok and when energised with 12v they throw over and continuity good (am wondering if they've arced too much and won't carry a good current). In fact, there is probably a way to jumper the relay in the fusebox to give it 12v to force it to throw over and go on. BUT, I'm not 100% on that, I'd have to do a bit of reading of the wiring diagram to make sure it won't fry things, so for now maybe take a look yourself, see what you think and I'll do a little reading and see what I can find. (I do know you can force the air con clutch relay manually using a wire jumper, as I've done that in the past. Assumption is the same!)

Might sounds like a daft question, when you had the fans off/stripped down, did you apply 12v to them and see if they actually spun? From all your diagnostics you sound like you're almost there. I'd be surprised if the ECU wasn't sending a trigger to them. I've also not heard of the fans coming on when the air-con is engaged. I can't say I've ever seen mine on in that situation. (2005 2.8crd so a very close model to yours). On the seat heaters, since circuit seems to be sound, i'd be suspecting the connectors under the seat as i've found these to rattle loose easily. Again, why not disconnect them and stick your multimeter on them when switched to 'on' and see if you get a voltage through which would check everything including the earth bonding to the seats?

Hi there Mike, Welcome to the club! Yes the air bag lights are quite common on GV's unfortunately. The garage you had trying to get the diagnoser on it, that probably wasn't a 'genuine' Chrysler dealership as they have the tools. Most other garages use a VAG or similar diagnostic scanner which just doesn't do the job on our beasts, they need a specific scanner to get the codes (so almost all back-road garages will plug in and say 'NO CODES FOUND' which means their scanner didn't understand the car). But yes, good first check is the connectors under all the seats. Also, check the lengths of the seat buckle. Is the driver and passenger side both the same length? If one is considerable shorter then chances are the seat pre tensioner has fired at some point and needs replaced. Then, do your steering wheel controls work (cruise control, horn?), if they don't then it's the clockspring in the steering wheel that has failed and needs replacing. (In the end a very kind chap from another forum put my car on his reader and confirmed it was a seatbelt pre tensioner on mine, but it was just the connector was loose) The other good news, is the airbag light will SELF-REMOVE. i.e. if you fix the problem it will turn the light out. So good to test yourself, just check all connectors and then start engine up, wait a few seconds and see if it goes out. Good luck, and please do post back on your progress or what you find.

Hi TrevH, that sounds like a slightly different problem, did they say to you a blockage, as it may be that your system is charged but not working? Does the aircon clutch kick in when you turn the air con on (put it on lo, and make sure the air-con star symbol is on whilst engine running, after a few seconds you should hear a click in the engine bay and the engine may dip a little in revs as it engages). If no click or anything then it's probably like my last GV and it has a seized up clutch which is an expensive job because of getting to it. Slash, sorry not sure on a blocked system (how did they diagnose this?) as I don't think that's too common.

Ah sorry, yes you are correct. Just as an aside I've used the standard ODB-II unit on my GV (2005) to get basic diagnostic fault codes and reset engine management light without issue. (All cars have to be ODB-II compliant after 1996, so a standard ODB-II can give basic diagnostics and most definitely won't damage the electronics in the car). I'll try and find out the tool that a friend has used on my car in the past, his wasn't specific Chrysler but more a universal chinese copy that could read and reset pretty much every code going on my car.

Hi there, Firstly, it's ODB-II which I think you're referring to here which is the communication system the car uses and can be used by connecting into the interface within the cab to retrieve fault codes, reset engine management lights, etc. Depending on what you're trying to diagnose it depends on the cost really. One of the cheap ODB-II bluetooth devices off ebay work fine to get you basic fault codes and reset the engine management light generally. For other more specific codes (ECU, SAS, Audio, everything else) then yes you need a specific Chrysler package, but I believe you can do this with the basic ODB-II adapter and it's the software that's the 'magic' part. The kit that I know a few people use cost upwards of £300 so it's not a cheap option depending on what you're trying to do.

Hi there, Yes you're right those two are connected. You'll probably have the model with the stored settings option, on the driver door have you got a 1 and 2 selector button (and a middle one I think unmarked?). This is for storing and recalling settings which will alter the seat position, height, etc, and also set the radio channels to your own preference. The idea is that you can have multiple fobs and drivers and set their own preferences each time you get in the car. Now to your problem, these are sometimes a little buggy (My previous GV had this issue occasionally), and there are a few reasons for it. The first is the obvious one, is the battery low? Do you get the gauge sweep when you turn the ignition on regularly? This is when the battery is low and/or not holding charge as well as it should and might indicate a dodgy battery. Charge it up with a normal car charger and see if the issue goes away (or goes away for a while). The other thing to do is to re-enter your settings and store them under option 1 on the seat memory. That way it'll set the settings back into the ECU and sometimes that will sort it out (I believe it can have a corrupted entry in there if you've had previous power issues, ECU issues, etc). I'm not 100% on the setting procedure, i'll dig it out in the manual next time I get a chance but if yours is handy take a look in there, it's fairly straight forward.

Might also be worth trying them manually and see if you can release them (might have got stuck). This is with the usual cautions, I found mine really difficult to lift so the spring is very strong! But I put my fingers around it and lifted it up a little, just enough to check it was free and could move. When you've done that, get somebody to watch them when you trigger them (as crispin says, put lights on, wipers and then a good long press on the trigger) and see if they move at all, or just move and don't squirt.

Interesting as I'm noticing mine doing similar, I've just been in and had a new steering rack fitted, so it's due going back in for a checkup shortly by the same garage (a well known uk-wide fitter) so I'm going to quiz them over this and get them to take a proper look into it. I'll let you know what they find/advise me on it.

Hi there, And welcome to probably a lot of pain for what you're trying to do. I've spent a long time with GV audio and 3rd party kits and the ultimate answer is without buying an expensive wiring harness/connector (In the uk approx £80-100) you'll be out of luck. I've posted this elsewhere in this and other forums so feel free to search and find my other posts, but basically what I found is that although the audio leads out of the factory stereo (Which one did you have, take a look on the front, it's probably an RB3) seem to match what you'd expect (front left, front right, rear left, rear right) they aren't actually analogue audio feeds but some form of hybrid digital feed. (I tested by systematically disconnecting and reconnecting leads, and I didn't get expected behaviour) So, whilst you are probably hitting the first obstacle of trying to power up the external amp (locating this is also tricky as it is in different places on many of the models, so again if you locate it on yours be sure to post back with pics also to help others!) you may still have difficulty feeding audio to it and getting the output you expect. Good luck and as mentioned do please post back with all the steps you do/try so others can benefit.

Unfortunately I didn't take pics of it before I scrapped the car, but it did a decent job, and certainly enough glow to know which buttons were which whilst driving. I think I bought the 3mm and in hindsight should have gone for 5mm to give a bit more light out, and the ones I ordered had the resistor soldered onto their base which was a pain when it came to attaching to the circuitboard, so try and get ones with the integrated resistor in the package rather than an external inline. But, it's such an easy job to do, throw a couple on and see what it looks like next ride out. I think I did that a few times to get them right originally. PS: avoid the climate control illumination! Mine were out on that too, so I took that module out, opened it up and tried the same trick. Almost blew the climate control board (it was lighting up random LEDs on the directional blowers, fan speed, etc, so it clearly didn't like having LEDs on that board!)

Is it automatic? And when you say it drops, if you keep your foot down does it stay around 2.5k? Automatic is normal to do that though, my 2.8crd does that.

Hi Phil, Quite a lot of these posts here and elsewhere so a few searches will help you out. However I have a mk4 (2004 reg) which I think is the same as yours and had this fault a few days ago. The mobile readers don't always find the airbag fault code, it's a reasonably tricky code to read, not 100% sure if the regular srs readers will do it. Anyway, I didn't have an srs reader handy, so just went with checking all connections. Under the two front seats you'll find a yellow connector which I believe is the cable junction connector for the seat sensor, etc, and is tied to airbag. (airbag warning light comes on when self test daily, ie sensor in seats fail, seat belt pretensions fail, etc) Unplug and check for corrosion in the connectors,plug back in firmly, etc. (btw don't do this whilst ignition on as apparently this can trigger a fault light too) Also check the seat belt sockets, are they at the same height? If one is lower then the belt trigger may have fired and need replacing, that's an easy visual check. I'm sure others will reply and explain more and have better info, but that's a worthwhile start. Good luck!

On my previous gv I owned I did similar to the centre console heated seats. When you say the leds have blown, are you on about the orange illumination to show seats are heating, or the green glow the 'bar' lights up with when lights are on? If its the orange leds then firstly that's very odd, as they are led I'd not expect them to blow, especially all of them, makes me think something else faulty. If you mean the green illumination, then that's the larger blue capped BULBS (yes you read right, filament bulbs!) the are soldered to the board. What you can do, which is what I did, u solder these bulbs carefully and replace with leds. All you need are 12v green leds with reasonable intensity (unfortunately leds are more directional than bulbs so their glow isn't the same). You then have to use a multimeter to find the positive rail that feeds the old bulbs and solder your led replacement on. Drop me a line if you need more info, but if you're OK with multimeter and soldering shouldn't take more than half an hour

Hi there, Welcome to the club, I recently bought my second GV and had a few little glitches to sort like you! It's normal, they're getting on a bit at that age (Mine's 2004). The airbag, this was the same on mine before I told the garage how to fix it! Does your cruise control buttons work, or any of the wheel buttons? Generally if it's the clockspring then the airbag light is on and cruise control won't work (Not sure if that's 100% always the case, but was in mine). If so, yes replace clockspring, the garage did this for me on warranty but only took him 30 mins or so, so can't be too tricky!

Sounds a bit low on MPG, however this varies hugely, I can make mine shift a good 5 or 6 depending on driving, and with you being a new CGV owner (I've owned 2 now) getting the sweet-spot is sometimes tricky! As crispinchurch touches on, are you calculating yourself or using the built-in trip computer? Going completely on trip computer I'm currently on 26.7 mainly as i'm doing 30-40 minute trips at a time (dual carriageway all the way) and haven't done any town driving. Literally all I need is to do a few kids school runs (10 minutes trips, through traffic lights, speed humps, etc) and that'll drop well below 24 usually. Assuming you're auto here too (I've got the 2.8 CRD auto) is it doing a lot of shifting between gears, or typically does it stay smooth? If it's shifting a lot might be worth checking the auto fluid, make sure it's ok as lost of shifting will impact economy. And finally, is your aux heater always on? (The three wavey orange lines to the top right of the top instrument cluster). This uses diesel to heat up the coolant to help on cold mornings, if the aux heater is always on (Like after 30 minutes driving still on) and it's not mega-cold (less than 5oC) then there may be a problem with the engine thermostat being stuck open and the engine running very cold, which also affects the MPG. Temperature should normally go up to 1/4 to 1/2 within 20 mins of driving in cold weather, less in some cases. Hope some of that helps!