1998 Dodge Intrepid ES

Hello all!

I just bought a 1998 Intrepid. It has the 3.2l v6. I have a few questions about it that I'm hoping someone here can help me with. For the most part, it looks and drives great, but I do need to do pads & rotors all the way around. It might need new tires too, but we'll see later.

The car has electronic climate control, but it isnt working. The guy I bought it from said there was some "chip" that was needed. Does that sound right? If so, where is it located?

Also, is there anything else I should be looking at?

Thanks! Doug

Reply to
dmschuler
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For the climate control, you need a new control head unit - under $50 at junk yards. Should find a bunch of them on

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Usually the problem is cracked solder joints in a couple of places on the circuit board inside the unit. But for $35 to $50, you might as well get another, but it may have the same problem. At least then, you'd have a spare and could try to repair the first one. The soldering required is very delicate - easy to ruin the unit if you aren't somewhat skilled at delicate soldering.

How many miles? Imperative that you replace timing belt, its tensioner, and water pump at around 100k-105k miles. The engine is an interference engine, meaning damage if the timing belt breaks. Around $600-900 job parts and labor.

Bill Putney (To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my address with the letter 'x')

Reply to
Bill Putney

Depending on what you mean. If the control head works and air is flowing from the dash vents you may just need some R134 put into the system to get the correct temp you are desiring. That vehicle is known to have leaky evaporators. What is the mileage?

Glenn Beasley Chrysler Tech

Reply to
maxpower

Besides the head unit, it may be the blower motor power module (it's an electronic module that does on the automatic temperature control (ATC) system what the resistor module does on the manual temperature control (MTC) system. It's located on the HVAC unit. If that is what's bad, it may be due to the blower motor pulling too much current due to wear and age - if you replace that module and it goes bad in a few weeks or months, the next step would be replacing it (again) along with the blower motor itself.

Bill Putney (To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my address with the letter 'x')

Reply to
Bill Putney

Thanks Bill. Would the blower motor work if that were the issue? There is no display on the haed unit, although I can turn on the heat and change blower motor speed.

Doug

Reply to
dmschuler

OK - that's the kind of info. you should have given in your first post - Glenn and I were working from a pretty vague description of the problem.

With the new info., it is clear that the problem is indeed the head unit

- the bad solder joints that I first mentioned.

This photo

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the area of the circuit board that myself and at least one other person on LH car forums separately determined to have the bad solder connections. The three larger, blue rectangular parts (resistors) in the upper right corner needed to be resoldered in both cases - they are in the display circuit. I'm only showing you that in case you have the equipment and skills to solder it. The unit has to be disassembled to do it.

If there's any doubt, again, I would suggest just buying one from a junk yard.

Or go to the forums at

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and contact a guy there who posts under the name TorontoFireCaptain. He is an LH car enthusiast and has guite a stock of in demand parts (like this one) that he has collected from junk yards. He has an impeccable reputation there for honest and fair dealing - I've bought a few items from him myself. He will have personally tested the unit before shipping it.

Bill Putney (To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my address with the letter 'x')

Reply to
Bill Putney

Yup bad head

Reply to
maxpower

Thank you gentlemen! Sorry for being vague at first. I'll take it apart tomorrow and see what it looks like.

Doug

Reply to
dmschuler

Bill & Glenn - Thanks!

Your advice was dead on. The only obvious crack was on the top resister, one side only. I re-touched all three resisters anyways. It's working again.

Total time spent was less than 20 minutes.

Thanks again, Doug

Reply to
dmschuler

You're welcome! I did that repair on one of my Concordes about 2-1/2 years ago, and it's still working perfectly. Got a little too much heat into two of the joints and the foil floated off the board - used jumper wires to patch those.

Bill Putney (To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my address with the letter 'x')

Reply to
Bill Putney

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