Hello everybody. I have a 1996 Dodge Neon that my wife drive's to work locally. Yesterday it wouldn't when she started it up it ran really rough, barely running really, and had a check engine light. It had just rained so I reved it up to see if it would clear up and it did not, so I turned it off. I popped the hood and there was a rat under it. Now, I am a technician for GM so I am familiar with these kinds of things. I killed the rat then got my flash lighted, lifted the car, and began an inspection. Most of the wiring is all original and still has that "thermal" type tape wrap around the wires. Upon inspection I only found one issue, the rat had chewed the wires off of one of the fuel injector clips. The wires were chewed off at the base so I grabbed a clip off of a local 1996 Neon parts car and repaired the wires. The battery was disconnected at this time and since I had to go get the part it was disconnected for over an hour. I checked all other wires again and everything was fine so I hooked the battery back up and attempted to start the car. It won't start at all now. Again, it started 3 times before and ran rough, but now it won't start at all. It does crank and I am getting fuel. So I checked the main engine ignition fuse in the dash and the 40 amp ignition fuse under the hood and they are fine. I am getting fuel and I hear the fuel pump running so that is not an issue. What could be the problem? If I hadn't started the car before I would just think that I missed another wire and that I needed to look closer, but I looked pretty close and it was starting before I replaced the injector clip. Any ideas?

UPDATE: Being that my Tech 2 is GM only I used the ignition cycle method to get the codes.
The flashes went as such: 1 pause 2 pause 4 pause 4 pause 5 pause 5 pause. According to my manual that would be 12, 44, and 55. Code 12 is "battery disconnected withing last 50 cycles", 44 is "battery temperature sensor volts malfunction, problem with the battery temp. voltage circuit in the PCM", and 55 is "completion of fault code display by check engine lamp". So if my manual is correct on how to read the codes then the only code that is an issue is 44, which I have no idea what would be causing that. It's a new battery with new cables and new terminals. Any ideas?

 

I had a similar problem with my 95 Neon. Upstate in NY the mice chewed up the wires and I had problems which costed me $2000.00 to repair.

PS You didn't have to kill the poor rat.

 

The code 44 is usually the battery temp sensor being disconnected. It connects at the bottom of the battery tray.

 

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