Major problem with my friends intrepid
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Major problem with my friends intrepid
Hello all,
Want to start off by saying a friend of mine recommended this forum for a good place to get some information. Another friend of mine owns a 2004 dodge intrepid which he bought in 2005 used from a Dodge dealership, and he is having some trouble with his intrepid. He knows very little about cars, so I've been trying to help him solve his issues.
I apologize in advance for this long, long long post, but I want to be as thorough as possible so that I can give you as much information as possible. I’m hoping someone here can help me figure this out, or at the very least point me in the right direction.
So the whole thing started by his cruise control not working. There were not errors kicked out by the car, but it just simply would not work.
So he took it to the dealership, where he bought the car, and asked them to fix it. The originally said it’s his cruise control motor, and that they could replace it for $150.00.
So he said Ok, go ahead, and the dealership replaced it, but then called him and said well, its not the cruise control motor, its your ECU. But since we quoted you $150.00, we’ll replace it for $150.00.
2 weeks go by and he calls them up and they say we are still waiting on the part…blah blah blah it will be in, next week.
So the dealership has the car 3 weeks, calls him up, says its ready, and he pays and picks it up.
He drives it home, car works fine. Next morning he goes to start the car up…and it starts, revs high and the stalls. He tries several times to start the car, but the same thing happens.
He can’t figure out what’s going on, so he calls the dealership and they say they’ll come pick it up and take a look. This is on a Saturday, so on Monday they call him back and said your iac is dirty and/or bad and you car is producing an error stating there is a problem with your IAC (idle air control) motor. NOTE: I never got the actual code that the car kicked out.
They say its going to cost $487.00 to replace the IAC and clean out the throttle body. However, the car starts right up for them so if he wants to wait he can pick it up.
At this point he comes and talks with me, and this seems a little fishy to me. I suppose, theoretically, the iac could have gone out. But the car was acting fine before they swapped out the ECU, so I accompany to make sure the dealership isn’t blowing smoke up his rear.
I talk to their tech and he explains what’s going on, and how much its going to cost, and I say to the tech, “Isn’t an IAC motor like 80-100 dollars. Why are you charging him so much? “
The tech explains what’s involved, and they charge by the hour…blah blah blah…and that’s why it costs so much.
Well I told them, I can just replace it myself, and if we still have issues we’ll come back. So the dealership charges him $60.00 for towing and says here you go and hands him the keys….well we go to start the car up, and it doesn’t start…same issue. The tech comes out and was like that’s weird, he tries three or 4 times and it finally starts and stays idling…he looks at us, and says are you sure you want to take it…I can go talk with my manager and see if we can do it for you cheaper. We say no and drive it to his house and say we’ll try and fix it ourselves.
This is in an effort to save my buddy money. So we go to autozone and try and order the part for a 2004 dodge intrepid 3.5L v6 high output engine, but its special order, so it will be in 4 days.
I said that was fine, since I wanted to try and clean the iac out first and the throttle body with carbon cleaner and see if perhaps its just really dirty. Well get the car all disassembled, and pull out the iac, and it wasn’t particularly dirty and neither was the throttle body, but I cleaned them anyway and put the parts back in, and the car still wouldn’t start. So we wait for the part, and it comes and it looks nothing like what iac was that I pulled out. I’m baffled and started to wonder if I pulled the right thing out, but I’m certain I did, and the person at AutoZone starts to look at what we have, and it turns out he has a 2002 IAC, and thus a 2002 throttle body on his 2004 dodge intrepid engine.
I’m shocked. Why would an almost new, certified pre-owned car, sold from a dealership less than a year after the car was new, have a two year older throttle body on it?
Well we lucked out and AutoZone had a 2002 iac, so we swap them out, and put it into the car, get it all put back together and the thing fires up like a champ. We drive it around to get the iac used to the car, and there was no issues what so ever with driving it around. So I thought we fixed the problem, and we went out for a beer, came back and the car starts up, then idles high and then dies….same problem as before. Check engine light comes on and that is where we stopped last night.
So questions I have:
Question 1: I would like to first check to see if a 2002 throttle body can be on a 2004 engine. Is this possible ?
Question 2: Where on the engine is the plate that has vin number for the car? I want to see if the vin for the car, matches the vin for the engine. I’m positive he does have a 2004 dodge intrepid because the insurance company matched the vin with his make year and model, but I want to see if the engine was swapped out, or if its just the throttle body.
Question 3: I’m guessing there is a difference between a 2002 ECU and the 2004, or at the very least the mapping is different. Because they swapped out the ECU, since he has a 2002 throttle body on his car, could the new ECU/mapping be causing all these issues and the iac wasn’t actually bad to begin with?
I’m really hoping that he doesn’t have stolen parts in his car, but at the very least the dealership has some explaining to do.
Thanks all for your info and help in advance.
Want to start off by saying a friend of mine recommended this forum for a good place to get some information. Another friend of mine owns a 2004 dodge intrepid which he bought in 2005 used from a Dodge dealership, and he is having some trouble with his intrepid. He knows very little about cars, so I've been trying to help him solve his issues.
I apologize in advance for this long, long long post, but I want to be as thorough as possible so that I can give you as much information as possible. I’m hoping someone here can help me figure this out, or at the very least point me in the right direction.
So the whole thing started by his cruise control not working. There were not errors kicked out by the car, but it just simply would not work.
So he took it to the dealership, where he bought the car, and asked them to fix it. The originally said it’s his cruise control motor, and that they could replace it for $150.00.
So he said Ok, go ahead, and the dealership replaced it, but then called him and said well, its not the cruise control motor, its your ECU. But since we quoted you $150.00, we’ll replace it for $150.00.
2 weeks go by and he calls them up and they say we are still waiting on the part…blah blah blah it will be in, next week.
So the dealership has the car 3 weeks, calls him up, says its ready, and he pays and picks it up.
He drives it home, car works fine. Next morning he goes to start the car up…and it starts, revs high and the stalls. He tries several times to start the car, but the same thing happens.
He can’t figure out what’s going on, so he calls the dealership and they say they’ll come pick it up and take a look. This is on a Saturday, so on Monday they call him back and said your iac is dirty and/or bad and you car is producing an error stating there is a problem with your IAC (idle air control) motor. NOTE: I never got the actual code that the car kicked out.
They say its going to cost $487.00 to replace the IAC and clean out the throttle body. However, the car starts right up for them so if he wants to wait he can pick it up.
At this point he comes and talks with me, and this seems a little fishy to me. I suppose, theoretically, the iac could have gone out. But the car was acting fine before they swapped out the ECU, so I accompany to make sure the dealership isn’t blowing smoke up his rear.
I talk to their tech and he explains what’s going on, and how much its going to cost, and I say to the tech, “Isn’t an IAC motor like 80-100 dollars. Why are you charging him so much? “
The tech explains what’s involved, and they charge by the hour…blah blah blah…and that’s why it costs so much.
Well I told them, I can just replace it myself, and if we still have issues we’ll come back. So the dealership charges him $60.00 for towing and says here you go and hands him the keys….well we go to start the car up, and it doesn’t start…same issue. The tech comes out and was like that’s weird, he tries three or 4 times and it finally starts and stays idling…he looks at us, and says are you sure you want to take it…I can go talk with my manager and see if we can do it for you cheaper. We say no and drive it to his house and say we’ll try and fix it ourselves.
This is in an effort to save my buddy money. So we go to autozone and try and order the part for a 2004 dodge intrepid 3.5L v6 high output engine, but its special order, so it will be in 4 days.
I said that was fine, since I wanted to try and clean the iac out first and the throttle body with carbon cleaner and see if perhaps its just really dirty. Well get the car all disassembled, and pull out the iac, and it wasn’t particularly dirty and neither was the throttle body, but I cleaned them anyway and put the parts back in, and the car still wouldn’t start. So we wait for the part, and it comes and it looks nothing like what iac was that I pulled out. I’m baffled and started to wonder if I pulled the right thing out, but I’m certain I did, and the person at AutoZone starts to look at what we have, and it turns out he has a 2002 IAC, and thus a 2002 throttle body on his 2004 dodge intrepid engine.
I’m shocked. Why would an almost new, certified pre-owned car, sold from a dealership less than a year after the car was new, have a two year older throttle body on it?
Well we lucked out and AutoZone had a 2002 iac, so we swap them out, and put it into the car, get it all put back together and the thing fires up like a champ. We drive it around to get the iac used to the car, and there was no issues what so ever with driving it around. So I thought we fixed the problem, and we went out for a beer, came back and the car starts up, then idles high and then dies….same problem as before. Check engine light comes on and that is where we stopped last night.
So questions I have:
Question 1: I would like to first check to see if a 2002 throttle body can be on a 2004 engine. Is this possible ?
Question 2: Where on the engine is the plate that has vin number for the car? I want to see if the vin for the car, matches the vin for the engine. I’m positive he does have a 2004 dodge intrepid because the insurance company matched the vin with his make year and model, but I want to see if the engine was swapped out, or if its just the throttle body.
Question 3: I’m guessing there is a difference between a 2002 ECU and the 2004, or at the very least the mapping is different. Because they swapped out the ECU, since he has a 2002 throttle body on his car, could the new ECU/mapping be causing all these issues and the iac wasn’t actually bad to begin with?
I’m really hoping that he doesn’t have stolen parts in his car, but at the very least the dealership has some explaining to do.
Thanks all for your info and help in advance.
