'96 Dodge Intrepid ES Check Engine Light

[TboneMan]

UPDATE!!! '96 Dodge Intrepid ES Check Engine Light

My wife and I had to swap vehicles today and I got to drive her '96 Intrepid ES (3. 5l v6). While under moderate acceleration going up a hill, the engine started to stumble a bit and the CHECK ENGINE light came on.



Is there a way to get trouble codes from from computer on this vehicle like there is on my 2001 Ram?



Any mechanics out there have an idea of a cause for a sudden engine problem like this?





P. S. the car has 135,000 mile on it.

 

[Rman]

my wife had a 99 for a while. It had transmission problems and then the computer blew out. Anyway, you can turn the key on and off 3 times and it will flash a code. This was her 99, i think 96's should have the OBD as well.



Good luck, those transmissions aren't that great in those cars, i know ours was a money pit.

 

[TboneMan]

Thanks rhickman,



I've heard that transmission comment many times. We've had no problems of this type (yet). Ours came with the Autostick. I don't know it this was a stronger transmission or not.





Other than normal wear and tear items, the only think we had replaced on this is the radiator, CV Joint, and the fuel sending unit (fuel guage didn't work).

 

[Rman]

Ours was the autstick too. Some control module went out on it at the time. Then the computer was failing the emissions and i found some a couple pins that had no output and were supposed to have something. So i deduced a bad computer. It ended up passing the tailpipe emissions but our county required the OBD to pass.



I reregistered by changing the addy, and got it registered, then took it to auction and sold it. At the time it had just about 100k on it, so it saw some mileage. I liked the car just not the problems. I bought it cheap at auction and rolled the dice. Came up short this time.



I saw an older intrepid (i think a 96) come through the auction with 215k on it. So there are some good ones, i just didn't get one!

 

[TboneMan]

Well, I went out at lunch and checked for the codes.



It is throwing a 12 and a 14.



I've got an appointment on Thursday at the shop... .

 

[HEMI®Dart]

Pretty good info here too: http://www.dodgeintrepid.net/forums/

 

[TboneMan]

OUCH!!

Well the word from the shop is not good.



What happened was a spark plug failed due to oil shorting it out.



Oil had leaked from the head/manifold area due to a cracked head bolt.



The dealer's shop is now trying to drill out the broken head bolt and hopefully they can get it out without damageing the head.



My guess is that this was a factorydefect (I've never re=torgued anything), and we have been driving with this for the last 135000 miles.

 

[Rman]

whoa, that sounds pretty bad. 135k isn't bad though, it got you some good mileage before imploding. Good luck hope they can get it fixed.