weird electrical issue

okay i'm confused by this

monday night, drive home from philly in light snow. i stopped at wawa. when i got back in my jeep, i started it, but as i started it, the lights flickers and my horn beeped and my locks locked and unlocked quickly, just from starting it

fast foward to today,
make it abotu 1/4 mile from my house, check gauges light comes on, and my voltmeter is pinned at 19. i say WTF? was driving fine though, i let off the gas to slow to a light, needle goes back to 14ish

at this point im thinking, i drove home int he rain yesterday, maybe something got wet and now it's dry.

10 miles later on my way to work, same thing, gauges, needle pinned at 19. i was almost to the bank. so i stopped at the bank, as i turned off my jeep, the needle stopped at 14 for a second before resting at zero. come out of the bank, start it up, and it did the horn, locks, lights thing again. drove the last 5 miles to work, needle right at 14.

thoughts? i checked my battery connections and grounds throughout the engine bay, everything seems fine. is it possible that i'm getting a short going to the gauge cluster and the default short setting is 19? please help



after doing some research over on jeepforum, i'm beginning to think it's a bad PCM, since the voltage regulator is in there. and i've had some other issues where the PCM may have been the problem, or part of the problem. but i didn't change it as those problem got better, not perfect though.

Most likely the issue is your alternator. The symptoms you describe are common for the Nippon Denso alternators when they fail.

Take it to a COMPETENT alternator shop for testing. Most of the chain parts stores can't tell when the Nippon Denso is bad--don't know if it is their equipment, their methods, or the operators.

I am not sure I buy the alternator problem. May be part of the problem, but wiring short in the harness, and or PCM sound more likely looking at all the symptoms.

Sounds like you need to call ghost busters with that start issue setting off door locks, head lights, on/off, etc. Is there an alarm system on it?

Have you checked all the grounds?

checked all my ground, terminals, tested the battery. all fine. and to top it off, it hasn't done it since wednesday morning!

What year is it?

BMXxXJ said:

checked all my ground, terminals, tested the battery. all fine. and to top it off, it hasn't done it since wednesday morning!

Click to expand...

There are ALOT of grounding points...I discovered this recently when I had to track down one that ended up being in the D/S rear fender.

it's a 2001, and there's 15 in the engine bay

Since no fuses sound like they've been tripped, I'm kind of leaning towards the alternator idea too.

I had an alternator problem with a previous (non-Jeep) vehicle and it had the similar sort of voltage swings that you describe. A new alternator solved the problem.

no fuses, no codes, it just happened twice within 30 minutes then stopped. i dont get it.

Well, the first thing to figure out is if the guage is right. No-ones mentioned the start switch yet. I've seen where the key doesn't fully spring back to the run position cause instrument panel wierdness like this.

Being a 2001, there is no regulator in the alternator to go bad.

lawsoncl said:

Well, the first thing to figure out is if the guage is right. No-ones mentioned the start switch yet. I've seen where the key doesn't fully spring back to the run position cause instrument panel wierdness like this.

Being a 2001, there is no regulator in the alternator to go bad.

Click to expand...

haven't heard the ignition switch yet. and since its a 2001, my regulator is built into my PCM

another day has gone by and still hasn't returned

My gauges started doing insane things when my headlight switch melted....

check the fuse box in pass kick panel, mine was doing this and turns out water got to the fuse box somehow... lots of green corosion. replacing this weekend.