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Hello all.
I have a 2007 dodge caliber, it hasn’t been drivable in quite a while now. About a year and a half ago my a/c compressor clutch I guess broke. It is super loose and very loudly spins, so my husband and I bypassed the compressor with a new belt. It seemed to have been working fine. Well a few months later my car started sputtering and died. We jumped it and everything electronic was going haywire. To get to the nitty gritty of it, the caliber has to be jumped to get it to crank/start. The battery voltage runs between 9-12 idle when it should be around 14v. It then gradually dies.
We have replaced the battery and alternator (several times each incase we bought faulty parts) , that still didn’t fix it. We had a “mechanic” look at it and told us he believed it was the PCM so we replaced that (still nothing changed). This guy vanished into thin air so I assume we were scammed with the diagnosis. We got the pcm from a reputable source so that pcm should be fine.With all of that said and done, I have only two other beliefs as to what could be causing charging system issues.
1. That the new belt for bypassing the compressor is not appropriately fitted or
2. There is something going wrong with the wiring between the alternator and battery.We hadn’t thought about the belt being an issue until recently.
Any thoughts would be appreciated.
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Replies
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First thing…
A wiring diagram of the charging system would be very helpful.Start with the simple things..
Inspect all the main power and grounds.
Make sure all connections are clean and tight.
Inspect all the cables for corrosion and breaks.
Beyond that check all the fuses and fusible links under the hood and inside the cabin.As to testing …again a diagram of your specific vehicle is needed.
What size Engine (i.e. 1.6L, 1.8L, 2.5L, etc)? Since it’s a GM product it’s bound to have a Totally Integrated Power Module (TIPM)-essentially to save size, $$$, and theoretically potential problems GM took most of what normally resides in an engine compartment fuse box and put everything except for some of the fuses onto printed circuit boards (PCBs) into a little box that lives “under” your fuses.B) In the Engine compartment.:( Where it gets rather warm. :unsure: And wet.:ohmy: And so on and so on. This regularly and frequently causes unique and frustrating problems that used to be able to be solved by replacing a damaged relay or fuse.:angry:
Unfortunately as you have discovered the hard way when a relay/fuse/connection on the PCB is damaged the end user or technician can’t simply swap out the relay or fuse an entire brand new replacement TIPM has to be installed.
Here is a copy of the wiring diagram from Mitchell ProDemand, you can get access to similar information to this yourself at the following site:
http://www.alldatadiy.com/buy/Check the connections indicated in the diagram to ensure they are intact and carefully inspect wires as best you can for wire rot, breakage, animal snacking, etc. If everything looks intact grab a digital multimeter and check for voltages at the 3 wires leaving the alternator (you’ll see them on the diagram) by CAREFULLY backprobing them. Let us know what those numbers are.
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