bignev

Hiya and welcome!
 
Usually post the questions in the technical help areas, it's quicker to get answers normally!
 
But yes, and yes

And of course do absolutely make sure that you check the atf fluid level in the gearbox. If it smells burnt, and isn't pinky red it's got a problem.
 
Because in limp mode (2nd gear I believe, my old 3.3 is in it) at 3000rpm you'd still be doing a reasonable speed!!

Well no4 sounds like engine mounts as on shutting down there is possibly no rubber on one mount, like front one that gets hammered.
No1/2 could be hot start plugs or power to them.
Belts, well, two prices, Chrysler dealer will want £125+/hr for labour. Independents down to £75/hr. Its a four hour jobby. Five years ago Chrysler wanted £650. But got mine for £450 independent. 
If there's screw holes on dash anywhere its been an Airport Posh Taxi and probably been round the moon. But mine was one, 225k miles plus and after 5 years been the best car on 50 odd plus I've had.  
Get the Auto box serviced oil & inside filter.
Oh and how's the Handbrake, does it hold at all.
Good Luck...

Hopefully this will be of some use to someone if the same happens, which sadly I believe it a common thing .
 
I've had the resistor in place for a week now, and its been working perfectly. About 300 miles covered faultlessly. It was playing on my mind about the whole thing being held together with electrical tape, so I decided to buy the ready made part from the chaps at www.custom300cshop.co.uk
 
Its the second time Ive used them, and they are really helpful, with fast deliveries.
 
The part I ordered was the swirl flap emulator
 
http://www.custom300cshop.co.uk/chrysler300c_swirlportemulator.html
 
Its basically a resistor fitted into a purpose made, and very high quality plastic casing, which fits perfectly into the swirl flap plug. This should take the worry out of the electrical tape melting or degrading over time. It was £40, which some may say is a lot for a bit of plastic, however the fact that they have had these specially made, they fit perfectly, and they are a damn sight cheaper than a new swirl flap motor, I think its good value for money.
 
Pictures below if you fancy a look.
 
Cheers
 
Matt.

Chuffing brilliant that fella!!!

Check the Alternator itself, as mine had the problem and I have heard a few others. Alternator seems to work ok but when bearings become dry it makes this odd high pitched noise when idling..

Hi gents... every gear is the same. Will only engage at low biting point.
Regardless of speed.. rev's are normal and there's no clutch slipping.
Seems to be worse with 1st gear and there is a slight judder sometimes.
No other noises or grinding.fluid level is good but looks dark so will get changed..
Bignev with the other post you helped with I've got new key and remote on the way for £50 and have found auto electrician that will code both here in Spain..want to get clutch done before drive back to UK..

Oh blimey, so did they have a go at resetting everything?
 
It may mean that your ECU needs to be reflashed with the original software due to it being corrupted, hence having to go somewhere else.
 
Ahh how simple life was, when we all drove Cortina’s lol.
 
Let us know how it goes.
 
Cheers
 
Matt.

Afternoon all.
 
I thought I would share a bit of a story that happened to me this weekend, in the hope that it will help some others if the same thing happens to them.
 
The model it concerns is any 300C with the Mercedes 3 litre V6 diesel. I'm guessing the newer models with the VM diesel will be totally different.
 
So there we are, on the way to Wakefield from Essex where we live, merrily trotting along the motorway. All of a sudden the dashboard starts to chime repeatedly (as if i've left the headlights on and got out), the engine cuts out completely, and on the dashboard are the engine management light, and the red lightening bolt, with a reverse bracket either side (see attached photo).
 
We coast to a stop onto the hard shoulder, and i try to restart the car. It turns over and over, but refuses to fire up.
 
The missus gets on the phone to the RAC, and we're told there's roughly a two hour wait, so this gives me a bit of time to do some Googling before the patrol arrives.
 
Now then, if you refer to the handbook, it clearly states (even in the diesel supplement) that the lightening bolt light indicates there is a fault with the "Electronic Throttle Control". This is utter nonsense. As it turns out, on the diesel models only, this light refers to a fault with either the Swirl Flap Motor, or the Turbo Actuator. Annoyingly this isnt listed in any of the handbooks that come with the car. Poor show Chrysler!
 
Whenever you turn the ignition on in the car, you can see the arm of the turbo actuator raise up. So if this is the problem, then its very easy to diagnose. I tried this little test, and sure enough, the turbo actuator arm wasn't popping up when my wife turned the ignition on, so naturally I thought this was the problem. Sadly I was wrong.
 
What had happened to my car was this....
 
Over time, the seal around the air intake on the front of the turbo degrades. This allows a small amount of oil to drip onto the swirl flap motor, which is situated directly below. (very poor design). This oil had eventually seeped inside the motor, causing it to short out. This short had instantly popped fuse number 15 under the bonnet, which in turn had caused the engine to shut down while doing 70mph to protect itself. I didn't have the handbook in the car with me sadly, so searching on the internet just have me fuse diagrams of the petrol models, which on those shows its for the injectors. Again as it turns out, fuse 15 in the front fuse box does completely different things on the diesel models. It protects the following.... A/C Clutch, A/C Pressure regulator, Crankcase Vent Heater, EGR Valve, Engine Control Module, Fuel Pump, Glow Plug Module, Swirl Flap Motor, Oxygen sensors..
 
So I replaced the blown fuse with a spare 20 amp, and the car fired straight up. It was now in limp mode, and showing the EML and Lightening light, but it was drive-able up to about 80 mph, albeit a bit slow getting there.
 
By this time, the RAC man had arrived. Now there is nothing worse that someone interfering when a pro is at work, so when he arrived, I left him to it, and he plugged the diagnostics in, and it threw up a ton of errors all related to things connected to this fuse. All except the swirl flap motor. He was a bit confused at first, but then I mentioned that I think it might be the swirl flap motor. He hooked up all his testing gear to it, ran a load of tests, and sure enough confirmed to me that the motor was dead.
 
He then cleared the ECU codes, started the car, and only then did it throw up a specific Swirl Flap related error.
 
HE gave me some spare fuses, and after a quick road test, we were on our merry way albeit in limp mode.
 
Now to fixing it.
 
The cheapest place I could find to supply and fit a new motor quoted £575 plus VAT. The motor is just over £100, but the labour involved is a joke. Anything that is situated inside the VEE of the engine (Swirl Flap Motor, Oil Cooler) etc needs major open heart surgery to fix it. Annoyingly both the motor and the cooler seals have known faults, so they couldn't be in a worse place!
 
If you fancy forking out all that money to have the motor replaced, then that is no doubt the best way in the long run, however there is a quick fix for £1.99 and YES it does work perfectly.
 
Get yourself some 4K7 resistors off of ebay, they are £1.99 for 50. Remove the engine cover, then remove the intake pipe that runs from the airbox to the front of the turbo. Right below the turbo, you will see a black box. This is the offending motor. On the right of the motor is a multi plug held in with a grey clip. Remove the metal bracket above the plug, and pop the plug off.
 
Grab a resistor, and bend the legs in such a way that they will fit snugly into the two centre holes in the plug. Theres 4 in total. Once you have put the resistor in, and you can confirm its in there properly. Tape it up with electrical tape so the resistor wont fall out. Replace the metal bracket, and the air intake pipe, leaving the plug sticking up so you can get to it again in the future if you need to. Then start up the car, and stand back in amazement as both the engine management light and the lightening bolt lights extinguish, and the car comes back out of limp mode.
 
Take the car for a drive, and you will see that it drives as good as new.
 
What you have done here, is fool the car into thinking the swirl flap motor is working again. WHen in fact its now disconnected.
 
You shouldnt notice any difference in performance or fuel economy at all. The emissions may be up slightly when cold is all.
 
So to summarise, if your car cuts out with the lightening bolt on.
 
1) Coast to a stop
2) Curse, swear, have a fag, but don't despair
3) Check fuse 15 in the front fuse box, and replace
4) Start the car and drive home in limp mode - The car will do upto 80mph
5) Order your resistors from Ebay, making sure they are the 4K7 type
6) Still use your car while you are waiting for them to be delivered, remembering that it wont pull away as quick as usual
7) Fit the resistor at the weekend in the rain
8) Stand back, chest puffed out, hands on hips, telling the neighbours you've just saved almost 700 quid :-)
 
 
 
 
 
 

Hi there!
 
Try the coil pack and the connector to it, they live in a VERY hot place on our engines.
Then plugs, and HT leads. 
Stuttering under load used to be an old fashioned symptom of dodgy plugs / leads, or before modern ignition systems it was timing out and points / condenser iffy (quite old now that one though hey!!!)
 
Did the DVD ever work? It's the headphone button to switch on the screen in case you didn't know.

Yes mate, go to my member profile and onto my gallery, there are a couple of pics of it there.

Got the shaft replaced.
The guys in the garage nearby, came out on saturdat afternoon. got under the car and cut the remains of the shaft off to stop it swinging around, they towed the car back to the garage, 1/2 mile approx.
They ordered the shaft on Saturday. I picked the car up today runs very well. As a bonus the folding mirrors have now started working??????????
£250 all in. Not bad huh.
If anyone is near North Wales these guys have all SNAP ON equipment. Code readers etc.

Yep, for me personally, the 19 and 20's just look too big, but obviously it's personal taste.
 
The 17's look really good, but the 18's just seem to be a good ratio of wheel to tyre as well.
 
The tyres actually look hugely wide off the car! But right in relation to the size of the car when on it.
I've got one of the old first set hung on a rope in the garden as a swing for my girls, and adult (usually blokes) visitors ask "what's that off!" and are a bit surprised it's the Voyager out front!!

For the fobs, you can buy second hand units and they can then be coded into the car, by a good quality auto locksmith.
The same guy should be able to cut and code the key at the same time.

Underneath the Voyager are a four metal pipes.
One is feed from the diesel tank to the underfloor heater,
one is exhaust for it to purge burnt fuel and the other 2 are water send and return.
They cost mega bucks to replace, even second hand.
The water pipes do rust, and can spring a leak. I have cut both of these pipes leaving enough metal to fit rubber heater hose.Works well.
Time will tell.

I have now sorted this issue. The problem is somewhere in the towing kit electrics and as I don't need them I have disconnected them altogether. The towing kit is a Chrysler one probably dealer fitted. The harness was connected in behind the rear light lights on both sides with an extra length of cable terminated with a male connector on one end and a female one on the other with the towing harness attached in between.  I found the connectors only after I had removed the interior panels but had I known I could have disconnected them from inside the light housings themselves. If you have a similar setup then just pulling the connectors free from the bulkheads with their grommets will reveal the additional lengths of cable and the original connectors and their grommets connected behind them. The towing electrics can be disconnected, wrapped in something suitable to stop them rattling and pushed back through the bulkhead. The original connectors can then be pulled through, their grommets fitted back into the holes and the lights connected back to the original harness.

It could also be the bushes in the shock absorber mounts.
Jack it up and it should be fairly easy to see as it rises up if the bolt stays remotely central or pulls from top to bottom on its way up.
 
I did mine last year, they were cream crackered!!!
 
But as it had self levelling type, I did the bushes not the complete shocks, hundreds cheaper!!

Try exhaust bandage. Repaired a few leaks in mine a few years back. Need to check for more before next MOT..

Hi there, do you have the same tyres front and rear? A mis match can make the road holding "interesting".
And not too old, or low tread depth - I mean nowhere near the legal minimum, on winter type tyres it makes a bigger difference as I am lead to believe to do their job they are supposed to be binned at a much deeper tread. It makes sense - shifting water / snow / mud takes depth.
 
I know lots of people have no clue what tyres are on their cars, all 4 different, and there fine, but then some people turn radios up to make the noises go away too.......
Or a mate of mine who couldn't feel a mis-fire on a 2 cylinder 2 stroke motorcycle?????
 
Are your rear shocks ok? Not bouncing around, as that will cause lack of road holding and adhesion too.

Yes bignev - for a period. The computer counts the incidence of the code NOT happening and removes it from short-term memory [and display], it does however remain in long-term until its cleared with a diagnostic scanner. For example code 12 is thrown if the system voltage drops too far beyond the normal range, this could just be that the battery has been disconnected to charge the battery it will be wiped from short-term in about 15-20 starts.In this case code 13

Er, just a thought, but don't the codes stay in the memory unless they are cleared?
 
Does it run fine now? If so it could now be ok but still showing history codes. My abs sensor ring did exactly that.
 
On all 3 of my 3.3 petrols the radiator cooling fan comes on before it's up to temp, possibly say 1/4 mark, then off, then settles to an expected pattern - if it's ruddy hot, or the AC is on, it runs.

I've been having the the classic low fuel pressure problems in my 2.8 crd.
Hard to start,constantly having to hand prime to start and press the accelerator. I checked the filter housing for leaks,and the fuel filter everything seems ok.I did the leak back test on the relief valve on the rail and that seemed fine so I was really starting to think fuel solenoid on the pump or dribbling injectors.
Anyway today I changed the battery from a 560A 70AH to a 800A 85AH I had to chop the tray but eventually got the bigger unit in place.
Low and behold the car started without any assistance !!
After a couple of minutes the cooling fan kicked in and then stopped ( is this normal ?)
It seems like a different car.
Its early days and we'll see how it goes but it's looking promising for now.
I think i'll be looking at doing the Leedsman's battery mod as well.

Have just bought 2007 300c and drove from south coast to north east England (220 mile) and the main thought on the way home was "Find a Chrysler forum", so popped it straight into my browser and here I am the owldest fart with a lookalike Bentley.

Thank QinteQ. It was a bit pricey, but I wouldn't sell on a dangerous car, and it was cheaper than buying a new car. The group has been helpful, so happy to record my experience. 

So garage have fitted 4 new injectors, and it so far so good. They have tested it and cannot replicate the cutting out. I have only driven it short distance, but it starts well (when previously it didn't) and it hasn't cut out, when previously it might have.
 
If anything changes I will get back on here, but for anyone else who is experiencing poor starting and cutting out here is the order of events for me:
 
Fuel Filter Pressure relief valve Fuel filter housing and wiring loom Pressure sensor on fuel rail Injector testing New injectors  
My car has been renamed Triggers Broom!