My daughter has a 2005 Dodge Neon with an intermittent no-start condition. It's driving me insane, and now she's living in VA instead of here and I'm trying to troubleshoot it long distance.
During the no start condition, it cranks just fine and all lights on the dash appear normal. It doesn't seem like temp or weather or time of day has anything to do with it. Seems random.
Car has had a new battery installed, new coil, new fuel pump, new fuel pump relay. After the new battery and fuel pump relay, which were the last things to be installed, they car worked fine, starting every time for about a month. It's now exhibiting the exact same problem as it has all along. Often, when it won't start, you can wiggle the relays in the fuse/relay block and it starts right up. But sometimes, that doesn't seem to have an effect. I have recently loosened the power block/fuse/relay box under the hood and examined the wires and connectors from the bottom for breaks or faults. It all looked fine. Yesterday and today, wiggling the fuel pump relay won't do it, but she swapped the horn and fuel pump relays at my request and it started. Twice.
The inside of the fuse box is clean with no visible corrosion. At one point, it wouldn't start until I whacked the fuel pump with the butt of a screw driver, hence the fuel pump replacement. Never a code returned, except for a low voltage one which was why the battery was replaced and one for the MAP. I've cleaned the throttle body, blown out the air filter, cleaned all the relay connections and coated them with dielectric grease. The MAP has been replaced. Still no fix.
She can't afford to have the dealer charge her to throw parts at it. Any thoughts you all might have would be much appreciated.
Not sure this will help but my Wife had a similar problem with a Nissan Sentra. It would crank until the battery was dead but would never start. This was random, or so we thought. We finally figured out that every time we started and moved the car for a very short distance, it would not start the next time. If we moved to to wash it or to shovel the drive way we would drive it around the black a few times and the problem never happened again. We could duplicate this condition over and over but could never figure out why.
Mike
What codes is it throwing? There are cam and crank position sensors that can cause problems.
If you don't have a code reader, do the key dance. Turn the car ON but do not start, then OFF, ON, OFF, and back ON. Should take 3-5 seconds to do this. The odometer will show you the codes.
My daughter has a 2005 Dodge Neon with an intermittent no-start condition. It's driving me insane, and now she's living in VA instead of here and I'm trying to troubleshoot it long distance.
During the no start condition, it cranks just fine and all lights on the dash appear normal. It doesn't seem like temp or weather or time of day has anything to do with it. Seems random.
Car has had a new battery installed, new coil, new fuel pump, new fuel pump relay. After the new battery and fuel pump relay, which were the last things to be installed, they car worked fine, starting every time for about a month. It's now exhibiting the exact same problem as it has all along. Often, when it won't start, you can wiggle the relays in the fuse/relay block and it starts right up. But sometimes, that doesn't seem to have an effect. I have recently loosened the power block/fuse/relay box under the hood and examined the wires and connectors from the bottom for breaks or faults. It all looked fine. Yesterday and today, wiggling the fuel pump relay won't do it, but she swapped the horn and fuel pump relays at my request and it started. Twice.
The inside of the fuse box is clean with no visible corrosion. At one point, it wouldn't start until I whacked the fuel pump with the butt of a screw driver, hence the fuel pump replacement. Never a code returned, except for a low voltage one which was why the battery was replaced and one for the MAP. I've cleaned the throttle body, blown out the air filter, cleaned all the relay connections and coated them with dielectric grease. The MAP has been replaced. Still no fix.
She can't afford to have the dealer charge her to throw parts at it. Any thoughts you all might have would be much appreciated.
Chris-
I just went through something similar with my daughter's Jeep Cherokee.. It was the crank position sensor. I don't know if that's a common part to go out on Neons like a Jeep, but it might be worth researching.
Thanks for the suggestions so far everybody. No codes are ever thrown. Neons are prone to blow up the cam position sensor. That was replaced a year or so ago. Could be that again except that jiggling the fuel pump relay makes it start almost always. It's a poser for sure. I'm afraid that it's going to have to go to the dealer in the hopes that Dodge has seen this before. I can't find any evidence of that online, including on several Dodge forums, but who knows.
Interesting thought about the grounds. There is a ground wire for the power block on the fender, and I had the thought to clean it last week. Might be worth a try.
If the fuel pump relay is in the same box as some of the other relayes, you might swap it out with something less critical to see if you get any improvement. Then again, if jiggling the relay is moving the whole box then it could be any connection.
The guys at turbododge.com are very helpful. You might let them chew on this one a bit. I've been hanging out over there ever since my favorite PT Cruiser forum was moved there.
I've swapped the fp relay with the horn relay loads of times. Both relays seem to work or not work intermittently in that location. And both work in the horn position also.
Wayne, I'm not well versed enough in using the OBDII scanner to know exactly what you mean. I've dumped the codes several times to see if a sensor was malfunctioning. The only code returned was for the low battery condition, which was the reason I replaced the battery. It was the original from 2005, so it was time. No other codes.
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