Jeep Enthusiast Forums banner

Chrysler question - help me impress my girlfriend?

1K views 21 replies 13 participants last post by  CGrugger 
#1 ·
A bit off, but you guys can help.

My girlfriend has a 2000 Chrysler Cirrus. She was driving down the road and suddenly it started revving up really high by itself. She had to hold down the brake to keep from shooting off.

She pulled over. I went and looked shortly, and her accelerator cable was very frayed, so I removed it while I ordered a new one.

But, even with the accelerator cable not attached, her engine still revs up and down erratically on its own.

Any guesses on how to fix it?
 
#8 ·
You might want to check to see if there are any safety re-calls on the car. If this is a manufactures recognized problem, they may have to fix it for you.
 
#10 ·
I have that same car as my DD. If she has the V6, there actually is no mass air flow sensor. There are no recalls for problems you are describing, only the front ball joints and head gaskets as far as I've heard. I'm really not sure why it would rev like that, but is it throwing a check engine light?

Also, to get the codes you don't actually need a computer thingie. If you turn the ignition to the on position, quickly turn it back to off and back to on. If you do the off/on combination 3 times and the last time leave it on, you should see your check engine light begin to flash. It will flash a certain number of times, then go off for a while and flash again. Write down the number of times the CEL flashes (for example, you may get 3 flashes, then off, then 2 more flashes, which would mean code 32). When it does 55, that means it is done throwing codes. If you can reply back what codes you have I can look them up in my manual and let you know what's up.
 
#13 ·
Wanna really impress her? fix it and off it as soon as its back from the shop. The Chrysler cars built on that platform, Cirrus,300,intreped etc are death traps. You can find mountains of TSB and recalls related to fires,tranny failures,seat beat failures,front suspension parts failures etc,etc,etc.
 
#14 ·
Actually they aren't all as unreliable as you would think. The Cirrus/Stratus V6 is manufactured by Mitsubishi, and other than the head gasket issues (which the recall covers), they are extremely reliable motors. I do admit the 2.7L V6 used in the Intrepid and a few other cars had oil sludge issues because they just weren't designed very well, but the 3.5L V6 and the 2.0L/2.4L I4 motors are about as reliable as it's going to get. I beat the heck out of mine and it hasn't given me a lick of trouble yet, but I always keep on top of maintenance and that's the key.

I think the problem really is that the type of people that own these cars are the type of people that don't take care of them. If you don't ever change your oil regularly, or change your transmission fluid, then do you really expect it to last?
 
#15 ·
Checked for codes, and it had none. I checked by the ignition method and an OBDII scanner. But, the Check Engine light is on. Alas. I ran the engine with the idle control motor connected and disconnected. It ran equally poorly both ways. Does this make y'all think it's the ICM?
 
#16 ·
Honestly I would just take it to a mechanic. On my CJ, I have no problems tearing everything apart and fixing it because it's pretty darned simple, especially since I don't even have the computer anymore. With my Cirrus, if it's not normal maintenance, I won't touch it. There's a lot of sensors and stuff, and if I don't know what it is or what it does, I don't like to fool around with it. I tried to flush my radiator one weekend and ended up having to take the entire front clip apart. That's usually how things go when I work on that car...

Also, you can try disconnecting your battery for a few minutes and resetting the ECU. This will clear all your radio presets, etc, but more importantly it will reset your computer. Many times on those cars, doing that will get rid of your CEL.
 
#17 ·
Did the engine rev up on it's own, or was she giving it gas and let up and the engine continued to rev? I would still consider the throttle cable that was messed up. Check the throttle linkage with the cable hooked up and see if it sticks, then unhook it and see if it sticks, if it doesn 't stick with the cable on take it off and chech the linkage to see if it's binding or sticking. Just went through this with my Trooper and the throttle cable in the inner housing was sticking to the outer housing.
 
#18 ·
First thing I did was disconnect the accelerator cable.

It revs up even with that disconnected, AND it revs up even without the accelerator cam turning. As far as I know, there are only two things that can rev the engine up: 1) the throttle cam and 2) the idle control motor.

So, if the throttle isn't moving, wouldn't it have to be the idle control motor revving the engine up?
 
#20 ·
I second the TPS. I had this happen one one of my cars. It would "idle" at about 2200 RPM's without touching the gas. It was intermittent though. Sometimes it would be fine until 10 minutes of driving, sometimes it would do it right when the engine was started. It took forever for a code to show up on it as well. Lots of searching on the internet is what led me to it. 30 dollars later, and about 5 minutes of labor, the problem was fixed.
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top