Has anyone had an intermittent electrical problem with their 98 Durango? I've been having a problem for the past few years where in really hot weather / long drives I'd stop someplace, come back and it wouldn't start, not the battery - lights & radio would run fine. Open the hood, jiggle the battery cables (and anything else that looks like a wire - no, I'm not very techy under the hood) and it usually started right up!. So over the years as this problem would periodically pop up, if it happened more than a few times, MrHunzi would go out and tighten up connections and electrical tape the small plastic connectors together to make sure something wasn't working loose. Usually, problem solved.

We kept saying, maybe we need to replace the cables, but never got around to it.

Now, the problem has reappeared, and not in hot weather, and not when we've been highway driving for 100s of miles. In normal, run around town use. Open the hood, jiggle the wires, starts up. Until last night - when no amount of jiggling was helping. Towed it home. Today, MrHunzi went out and tightened all the connections - it started up.

Called the mechanic - asked if we should replace the wire harness. He's not sure, and says he can't say without actually seeing the problem in action, which isn't predictable. He says it could be a computer short - but that seems less likely given the "jiggling method" usually worked!

Has anyone else experienced this? If so, what did you do about it?

Help y'all !
Hunzi

 

You have a questionable connection somewhere...... When it won't start, what does it actually do? Do you hear a click?(relay) A thunk?(starter solenoid) Does the engine roll over, and just not fire?

 

Just the click!

Hunzi

 

Maybe be just a bad relay, (in the PDC, swap it out with the horn relay, see if it helps.) or a bad connection down at the starter motor.

 

Agreed, I'd be inclined to think it would be the starter motor connection (either end or the cable itself) since the "wire wiggling" seemed to fix the issue all that time. If loose it would have probably badly corroded over time making it increasingly worse.

 

it sounds more like a ground issue look for any wires that are terminated to the frame or just screwed into metal. there should never be any movement at the termination also look for any corrosion in the connection. I typically sand bare metal until it is clean and use a self tap screw it in place with the other end stripped and twisted together and touch it to each ground wire until the problem is fixed then you know where to clean and secure the connection