Questions and Answers

Chrysler Cirrus Will Not Start Q. Found your web page and interested in finding out why our Chrysler Cirrus wil not start. Some background: Vehicle was running well. Stopped at a traffic light, then on GREEN after pressing the gas, nothing happened. The car would only creep along. Pulled to the roadside and verified it was in gear and pressed the accelerator again. No response.

Turned off the iginition and had vehicle towed to a garage. Was told the fuel pump was bad (no pressure on fuel side) so had it replaced along with the fuel filter. Still will not start. The garage was a factory delare so they whould know, right? Well they contacted Chrysler who took several days to diagnose, there are NO CODES.

Chrysler factory said to replace the distributor cap and rotor, plus plugs and wires plus new air plemiun gasket. The dealer wanted $650.00 to do this. I declined their service and replaced all theose parts myself. Rotor is a dealer only part, the rest purchased at local parts store for approximately $100.00. It took me about less than four hours. You guessed it, the vehicle STILL WILL NOT START.

It cranks over. I have spark at the spark plug and fuel is not getting into the cylinders as the plugs are wet. The car has about 98,000 miles, mostly highway. My thoughts are the timing belt, but cannot prove it. Have no rela desire to tear it apart unless there is some reason.

Searched your site and discoverd this is an interferience type system, so if it broke, I may be in real trouble? If it slipped a tooth or two could this be the result. For me it is hard to believe all this went bad at the same time. Ii is understandable that a fuel pump can go out with no warning, you just accept it. I have had these replaced on other vehicles and all was well. Your thoughts?

Bill

A. In order to verify the timing belt, you will need to static time the vehicle. Mark, the position of the number one sparkplug wire on the distributor body and remove the distributor cap.

Rotate the engine so that the timing index pointer aligns with 0 and rotor contact points to your mark on the distributor body. If they don't align, the belt has indeed slipped, if the rotor doesn't turn, the belt has indeed broken.

If everything checks out okay, then you need to verify fuel pressure. Wet plugs don't always tell the story. Using a proper fuel pressure gauge, check your key on pressure and cranking pressure. If less than specified, you will need to troubleshoot the fuel pump circuitry, relay, pressure regulator, wiring, fuses, inertial shut-off switch etc.