Questions and Answers
Dodge Durango PCM Failure?
Q. Hi Vince, I have a 2000 Dodge Durango SLT 5.9 liter engine. It has approximately 84,000 miles. I was reading some of the other questions and two of them are very similar to the problems I am having with my Durango. When I first start the car in the morning the engine revs really high and then surges up and down, sometimes for several minutes sometimes just for a few seconds.
When I first had trouble it began by surging while I was driving home to Pennsylvania from Virginia. An hour into my trip the engine began to surge and recede while I was driving. It kept moving between 2,000 and 3,000 RPM. Not jerking, just fluidly moving up and down. The check engine light came on, I made it home five hours later.
The next morning the light was off. It did intermittently for awhile, but the engine light didn't come on again until a few weeks later. I brought it in to the mechanic, they hooked it up to the machine and then cleared the codes and could not get the car to produce an error again. They did an upper engine clean because one of the codes read for the fuel injector. The car ran a little better, it stopped surging while I was driving but still surged upon first start up.
Then the car began lurching sporadically as I drove. It seemed to happen at all different speeds. The car became progressively worse and then about two weeks ago when I was stopping at a light the car almost stalled and it was jerking slightly as I slowed, the revved back to normal and instead of surging higher like before it was going lower like it was going to stall and then go back to normal and just keep going up and down, then once I took off it was fine.
It didn't do that again for a week or so, then began to do it again more and more. Not every time I stopped but almost. The mechanic took it a couple of weeks ago and drove it for three hours and said he could feel nothing wrong. His advice was drive it until it dies then we should be able to find the problem.
Needing a second opinion I brought it to the dealership. The mechanic there drove with me to see the problem and thankfully the car did everything wrong while he was there. They hooked it up and got out a bunch of codes for all kinds of different part of the car, but when the checked the sensors they were fine. They are leaning toward it being the PCM. Sorry this is so long! Can you help?
Thank you,
JoleneA. You are a smart lady Jolene. You went for the second opinion and are asking a lot of good questions. It will be hard for a dishonest mechanic to cheat you.
I think the Dodge Dealer is on the right track here. When you get all kinds of crazy codes it usually indicates a bad PCM or bad grounds. And I will assume they check all the ground connections before condemning the PCM.
