[Don Paul Jones]

Glad to hear that myckee was able to help you out, and that the PCM was the issue all along

But why did you have him disable the SKIM?

The only thing I see in any of your posts was that it originally had error codes that were related to the O2 sensors, not any problem with the SKIM.

How did you pay for the CarComputer Exchange PCM? If with a credit card, you should be able to do a chargeback through the credit card company and they should be able to get your $ back.

Aloha 06PTElectricBlue,

I had him disable the SKIM because I was thinking maybe that could be a problem. I hate that bulky ignition key.

Myckeee did the Mopar Stage 1 on the pcm and it seems to be working fine. I going to order another one from him, want to keep a spare as sooner or later pcm's are going to start getting scarce.

I paid CCE with credit card, notified the bank to reverse the charge, and still waiting. This guy Mike at CCE said that my bank was denying the refund. Spoke with my bank and they said "no way". Then "honest mike" says if you give me your paypal account I'll refund it there. Told him, "you took it from the bank, you return it to the bank". I hope no one else ever makes the same mistake I did.

 

[06PTElectricBlue]

Aloha 06PTElectricBlue,

I had him disable the SKIM because I was thinking maybe that could be a problem. I hate that bulky ignition key.

Myckeee did the Mopar Stage 1 on the pcm and it seems to be working fine. I going to order another one from him, want to keep a spare as sooner or later pcm's are going to start getting scarce.

I paid CCE with credit card, notified the bank to reverse the charge, and still waiting. This guy Mike at CCE said that my bank was denying the refund. Spoke with my bank and they said "no way". Then "honest mike" says if you give me your paypal account I'll refund it there. Told him, "you took it from the bank, you return it to the bank". I hope no one else ever makes the same mistake I did.

Normally a refund has to be done back to the same way that it was paid, which means back to the original form of payment.

PayPal is normally very safe because the merchant that you are doing business with does not have direct access to your bank account info, so they don't "see" the bank account # to refund it back to. But I use PayPal all the time for online purchases as they have a great dispute resolution department should something go wrong with the transaction.

If it were me, I would accept the refund to the PayPal account to get my money back now. If your PayPal balance is larger than the refund, then it will just make that balance lower. If you have no balance with PayPal and the refund would put your account into - balance situation, then you should be able to contact PayPal and they should cut you a check or refund back to your bank account.

Another option would be that you could give CCE your PayPal email address, then they send you the refund via that, then you can transfer it back to your bank account for no fees. If you choose that, be sure that they send the refund like they are sending $ to family or friends so that you don't incur any fees on the transaction. If they send it like it's for merchandise, then you will have some fees deducted from the $.

But either way, I would have my money back now, one way or another, and be done with CCE.

 

[george w]

This is all based on the assumption that the computer is at fault and that a failure is heat-related, and that that heat is delivered from the engine compartment. Too many assumptions and not enough proper diagnostic work.

I'd say it's a fairly safe bet that it's the under hood heat on these turbo cars that's causing these computer issues.
Various "false" 0032,0035 codes being set seem to be the norm yet there's no degradation whatsoever of the performance of the engine. It get's super hot back there including the PCM which is only a few inches away from the turbo housing. These failures seem to occur when the mileage gets in the 100K range.
The crystalization of the washer nozzles is another indicator of high heat. I'm on my third set of nozzles. These things snap like dry pasta !
Just thinking that maybe simply removing the entire rear piece of engine compartment weatherstrip would also promote airflow out of the engine compartment.

 

[Don Paul Jones]

I'd say it's a fairly safe bet that it's the under hood heat on these turbo cars that's causing these computer issues.
Various "false" 0032,0035 codes being set seem to be the norm yet there's no degradation whatsoever of the performance of the engine. It get's super hot back there including the PCM which is only a few inches away from the turbo housing. These failures seem to occur when the mileage gets in the 100K range.
The crystalization of the washer nozzles is another indicator of high heat. I'm on my third set of nozzles. These things snap like dry pasta !
Just thinking that maybe simply removing the entire rear piece of engine compartment weatherstrip would also promote airflow out of the engine compartment.

Aloha George,

You got a good idea. The way I did it was to create a "chimney effect", but maybe your way is better as you can always just put the weather stripping back in without any breaks. The whole idea is getting excess heat out of the engine compartment and anything is better than nothing. You can shoot a digital heat thermometer against the windshield to see what the difference in temperature is which gives you an idea on how much heat is escaping.

To me PCM's should not be in the engine compartment. My daughter had a honda civic and the computer was in the footwell on the passenger's side, far cooler place for it.

 

[Bob Lincoln]

Aloha George,

You got a good idea. The way I did it was to create a "chimney effect", but maybe your way is better as you can always just put the weather stripping back in without any breaks. The whole idea is getting excess heat out of the engine compartment and anything is better than nothing. You can shoot a digital heat thermometer against the windshield to see what the difference in temperature is which gives you an idea on how much heat is escaping.

To me PCM's should not be in the engine compartment. My daughter had a honda civic and the computer was in the footwell on the passenger's side, far cooler place for it.

Many cars have a computer there, but it's not the PCM. The PCM needs active cooling, since the MOSFETs get hot on their own. It's why they put the intake air across them, or used to.

And a "fairly safe bet" is an expensive way to diagnose a car. I prefer to know.

 

[george w]

The location of the PCM in the PT Cruiser is positioned in such a way that it's a heat sink for the turbo. No way it gets any ventilation in that location. There's so little room in the PT engine compartment. They should have mounted it behind the grille ! Oh, and have used metal washer nozzles !

 

[george w]

It's too bad these cars are worth so little now. Between the difficulty and expense of replacing the timing belt and the related components as well as the failure rate and the cost of the PCMs it doesn't make economic sense for the average owner to fix these terrific little cars. The recommended timing belt change interval of 102K miles and the cost involved in changing it dooms these cars to simply be driven until they stop.
Unless you're a competent DIY person where you have the ability and patience to fix it yourself, having a good shop do a timing belt job at 102K is just not worth it.
It seems that as you pass around 120K miles all sorts of repairs will be imminent if they haven't been done already. Timing belt, water pump, motor mounts, suspension components, radiator, PCM on turbos, etc. simply add up to make expensive repairs like a timing belt change at 102K a bad idea as there will be additional repair expenses lurking not all that far down the road. Too many systems and components that won't make it to 200K miles.

Now if there was a kit to convert a PT to an electric car that would be the ticket !

 

[06PTElectricBlue]

The location of the PCM in the PT Cruiser is positioned in such a way that it's a heat sink for the turbo. No way it gets any ventilation in that location. There's so little room in the PT engine compartment. They should have mounted it behind the grille ! Oh, and have used metal washer nozzles !

This is a mod that Handy_Cruiser did to his PT when he put a custom hood on his, but this is where the washer nozzles should have been mounted, on the cowl panels, the hood would look much sleeker and smoother and they wouldn't be cooked from the engine bay heat

 

[Doug D]

On the washer nozzles:

Had to replace them on our '10 Journey due to cracking from engine heat. On my '06 Ram 1500 it still has the original nozzles, but they are located on the cowl, not the hood like the Journey and PT.

 

[Don Paul Jones]

This is a mod that Handy_Cruiser did to his PT when he put a custom hood on his, but this is where the washer nozzles should have been mounted, on the cowl panels, the hood would look much sleeker and smoother and they wouldn't be cooked from the engine bay heat

Aloha 06PTElectricBlue,

That's a nice hood scoop. Where did he get it from and how much?

 

[06PTElectricBlue]

Aloha 06PTElectricBlue,

That's a nice hood scoop. Where did he get it from and how much?

You have to replace the entire hood to get that look.

He found a hood on a PT in Chicago, drove up there from Arkansas to pick it up, brought it back, had it painted and put it on his PT, it's a real good look

He also added a Chrysler rear spoiler to his 'vert

 

[06PTElectricBlue]

The location of the PCM in the PT Cruiser is positioned in such a way that it's a heat sink for the turbo. No way it gets any ventilation in that location. There's so little room in the PT engine compartment. They should have mounted it behind the grille ! Oh, and have used metal washer nozzles !

Member "myckee" who works on PT PCM's, can probably provide some statistics of what he has seen in the failure rate of PCM's between the Turbo and NA's and I would venture to speculate that he has seen many more fail from the Turbo's than NA's, due to excessive heat from the turbo.

It's too bad that they couldn't have put some kind of a heat shield in front of the PCM, particularly on the Turbo models, that would still have an air space between the shield and PCM to allow air flow around it, but then it had a foil reflective surface to direct the heat forward and away from the PCM, might help in the survival rate of the PCM.

 

[Don Paul Jones]

You have to replace the entire hood to get that look.

He found a hood on a PT in Chicago, drove up there from Arkansas to pick it up, brought it back, had it painted and put it on his PT, it's a real good look

He also added a Chrysler rear spoiler to his 'vert

06PTElectricBlue, am I seeing this correct? Seems your friend has 2 of those hoods, one on the 4-door and on on the convertible.

 

[06PTElectricBlue]

06PTElectricBlue, am I seeing this correct? Seems your friend has 2 of those hoods, one on the 4-door and on on the convertible.

No, the sedan was the one he found in Chicago that the owner sold him the hood off of.

 

[george w]

It's funny, at least on my PT GT, the original PCM "failure" appeared to only be the fact that the CEL was lit and there were false codes being set. The car ran perfectly, but would not pass state inspection with the CEL lit. A lot of time and expense replacing O2 sensors and such that weren't bad only to find that the PCM was at fault.

 

[Don Paul Jones]

It's funny, at least on my PT GT, the original PCM "failure" appeared to only be the fact that the CEL was lit and there were false codes being set. The car ran perfectly, but would not pass state inspection with the CEL lit. A lot of time and expense replacing O2 sensors and such that weren't bad only to find that the PCM was at fault.

Aloha George,

My Touring Turbo had 46k miles but 15+ years old when the pcm decided to pass away. I had the O2 sensor codes but the car would randomly die. Thank God Myckeee sold me a good pcm.

 

[george w]

I'm sure the under hood heat is responsible for the PCM Failure. Since the false codes being set are rather commonplace it would indicate to me that a certain component or group of components within the PCM are the most vulnerable. No surprise though that other related problems pop up as well. The two remanufactured PCMs I had received not only had the usual bad codes but had other problems as well. They were unusable.

The PCM should have been located way up front ahead of the radiator and the car should have been made with a timing chain and a long life water pump !

 

[Don Paul Jones]

I'm sure the under hood heat is responsible for the PCM Failure. Since the false codes being set are rather commonplace it would indicate to me that a certain component or group of components within the PCM are the most vulnerable. No surprise though that other related problems pop up as well. The two remanufactured PCMs I had received not only had the usual bad codes but had other problems as well. They were unusable.

The PCM should have been located way up front ahead of the radiator and the car should have been made with a timing chain and a long life water pump !

Aloha George,

Funny thing is my PCM failed @ 47k, maybe the age had something to do with it. After canceling my pcm order from CarComputersExchange when I found out they're a big rip off and then sending my PCM to SIA Electronics and they sent it back saying it checked out ok (when It wasn't), I have little faith in these car computer guys. Before buying from any of these internet ripoff's check these BBB ratings first and then contact Mckyeee and get one that works. I'm going to buy another one from him as a backup as time goes along they will get harder and harder to find good ones.

Doing my timing belt, water pump, tensioner, idler right now and it's a bear to do on a turbo. I will never do it again that's for sure and hope I get it running again as I spent a lot of money on changing suspension, brakes, electronic engine modules, pcm, etc.

 

[CudaPete]

The later 2.4 as found in the Sebring would have fit right in... timing chain and all! No need to wrap the intake manifold over the head. Plug changes are a breeze. My daughter had this engine in her 07 Sebring. I liked it better than the engine in my 01 PT. Both fuel economy and power were much better too.

 

[george w]

The Ace mechanic on YouTube, Motor City Garage has done a number of excellent videos on various services on the PT as well as other Mopar vehicles. He has a great deal of insight.