Here I am

NO BUSS on a 2012

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2917 w/68rfe trans

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What did I do wrong? The other day when I disconnected the trailer electrical plug the truck went completely BONKERS. The windows went down, the windshield wipers turned on, the tac went to 0 with the truck running and the dash lit up like a Christmas tree reading "NO BUS" on the evic. Is it best practice to turn the truck of before unplugging the trailer? The check engine light is on with the P0606 code. The trailer is a dumper with a 12 volt battery onboard to run the hydraulics and brakes. Does anyone know if there is a diode or other form of protection to keep the trailer voltage from back feeding into the truck? I understand there is a 30 or 40 amp fuse and there is a charging circuit that charges the trailer battery when it's connected but that won't stop stray current from entering the trucks electrical system. It's been two days and the CEL is still on. I made an appointment but we all know how that tends to go especially if the CEL clears by then.

Am I the only one with this gremlin?



I still haven't figure out how to insert a photo.

 
This is just old school me. disconnect the batteries on the truck for a few minutes and then reconnect them. I have a dump trailer and RV that have batteries and have not had any problems. Like you, I would think any reversals pr grounds would open a fuse or relay. I've pulled trailers with all my trucks and never had a problem. Worse now there are no wiring diagrams in the DVD service manuals. Let us know what the find. Ron
 
Will do. The trailer was connected for a few days but.... it certainly didn't seam like I did anything out of the standard operating procedure. The scary thing was I had no idea what gear I was in as all the gear indicators were illuminated. I thought I was pulling forward and almost backed into the trailer. I couldn't put the windows up or turn of the wipers. The truck was just doing its own thing. I'll keep ya posted, thanks for chiming in.
 
I was able to cycle the key 3 times, pausing in the OFF position, when the truck restarted the NO BUS message was there and the dash looked as it does in the picture. Yes - I was concerned. On the fourth try the BUS came back online and all the symptoms went away however the CEL remains with the P0606 code.
 
Can you believe Im still dealing with this issue! The dealer replaced the guage cluster twice and the TIPM module. I replaced the batteries which now I see was an unnecessary 400 dollar expense.

UNBELIEVABLE
 
Can you believe Im still dealing with this issue! The dealer replaced the guage cluster twice and the TIPM module. I replaced the batteries which now I see was an unnecessary 400 dollar expense.

UNBELIEVABLE

Yes, I can believe it. People can really get lumped up with electrical gremlins. I googled P0606 and nowhere in the troubleshooting recommendations I read about did anyone describe replacing gauge clusters, batteries or TIPM’s. Some basic troubleshooting needs to happen AFTER the person attempting to diagnose the P0606 reads, understands AND comprehends the potential causes of the code.
 
Still showing the P-0606 code. I've read quite a few articles from the 3rd gen with this issue, 4th gen seems few and far between.

P-0606 I believe is PCM failed self test.

I'l keep you posted.

I'f anyone has dealt with this please chime in.

My last RAM (dodge) truck was flawless. This is almost a 45k paper weight.

Does anyone know how the lemon law works?



haha- anyone want to buy a truck;)
 
I don't want to discount the disconnecting of the trailer could still have had something to do with this.

It seemed to go away for a bit, did you happen to notice anything trigger the last event? What were you or the truck doing?

So you could look at the rambodybuiler site and check a few wiring diagrams start from the trailer connector and see which computer is the closest to that it could be some random body control module took a spike when you unplugged your trailer, or the trailer harness its self.

If you were messing with a trailer again I would unplug the trailer harness for a bit and run it isolated a bit while you just cruise around, could have a bad wire or pins are smashed up.

Industrial CanBus needs to be terminated at at certain resistance, IDK what automotive is, but we use 120ohm as a baseline for parallel gen set controllers and multiple relays that are on the "bus", and depending on the distance a few times we needed to actually go to 75ohms what a mess of small resistors I had from radio shack to figure that out in the middle of nowhereville, usa... something is crashing your bus, so it seems they are trying to find something that is "bus" related so they think its the cluster,,, maybe because its lighting up and the sort,,, going crazy, obviously that appears to be a symptom not a cause after two of those are now on the pile. If you use that logic you would have to replace the wipers next and the locks you can see how quickly these symptoms add up.....or maybe the scan data was pointing that way or their troubleshooting tree they have a lot more info then us.

My overall point is something appears to be crashing the bus, or a module is bad,,,, troubleshooting wise, while it is in that failed mode you could attempt to try to get on the "bus" and check all the modules present. And see who is not talking back. Look at that module and related harness.

We had a '18 Ram 1500 maybe 45mile on the clock do the same exact thing you described, it had a shorted clock spring harness, if I still have the ticket will look. I was very surprised by that diagonistic report and have not heard of a clock spring issue or noted that way in a long time for a new vehicle. It was noted it was the harness not the actual clock spring issue of old, had a short in the harness that was taking down the bus.

If this is trailer related I would see if there is maybe a diode in that harness that makes it a charging only port, so backfeeding into the truck is prevented, IDK if that even exists this way doubt it, but to prevent a trailer from taking out the truck might be maybe a diode is shot and you are getting a spike when you unhook the trailer. The trailer harness or connector could be damaged.

We also had a '17 Promaster City that twice the OBDII port got smashed by drivers thinking the GPS was the parking brake, that causes a short between pins and also causes the above, by the way the parking brake is in the center console, no clue why they were lifting there leg so high to push the GPS plugged into the OBDII.

If you run any external gadgets on the OBDIi port remove them.

Only other thing if you do find a conclusion please post the end result.
 
I waited a week just to be sure (or have a better idea) this may sound crazy but here it goes. The truck was at the dealer just over 4 weeks. THEY COULDN'T FIGURE IT OUT. However, I do have faith in these guys, this is just an unusual situation. I brought the truck home and looked it over again.

Here's the take away.

LED lights are a photovoltaic source. If these lights are to be added, no matter how small, connecting directly to the factory harness is not advisable with out a diode or insulation relay. A bright sunny day is enough to take out the data loop in the truck. Even if they are extremely small LEDs, like the size of a maglite.

I don't drive the truck very often so of course it was impossible to draw a correlation prior. Almost 5 weeks of diagnosis- 2 weeks trouble free.

Thanks to all,
 
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