Hey there, viewers welcome back to the south main auto channel, that's a 2009 chrysler, it's the town and country. It's the touring. It's got the big 3.8 and it's from the auction and remember not all cars from the auction are bad, but all bad cars are at the auction. So it's a used car guy special here the battery dies overnight or sometimes quicker within a few hours brought it in yesterday and when he dropped it off, i let it sit, let her sit for an hour or so and then checked it for a draw using The common methods that we typically do, that i've showed you in other videos where we check voltage drop across the fuses until we find you know the the source of the current draw in which this case, i got some very erratic readings, and i decided you know What it's late in the day, let's nix this job and unhook the battery throw the battery charger on it, get it up to snuff, see if the battery is good and it's not, you know, the battery only puts out 300 cold cranking apps, but it went fully Charged and it's good enough for our purposes of testing, so once we did that i hooked the battery back up and then we wait.

Uh gave it about an hour and then decided to come back and do a new school approach. So that's the opposite of old school and that's where we use our thermal imager and i started shining it around and we could see that the tipum was had a little warm spot in it. The cluster was hot, the radio was hot, my wife is hot, but that doesn't have anything to do with it, but we could see all these components that were on so to speak. Things sat overnight in the shop with the neutral temperature and we could see after having the battery hooked up for only an hour.

A lot of these components are red now now, what do you do? You know that's where you can get in trouble. A lot of these guys in the shops have thermal imagers, and you know we just start unplugging stuff, well, you're gon na go down this rabbit trail and never really be able to fix the car. So we put that in our back pocket. We write down hey tip, them's hot, you know, radio, you just kind of keep that all in your mind, i seen uh on the when i threw the amp clamp around the main battery wire running to the tipum.

You could see this really erratic pattern. It was very consistent, so it shouldn't say erratic, but you would see a high amperage draw two amps. Let's say 10 seconds later drop down to one then back to two then back to one. You know roundabout way.

So i seen that and i had to come up with a different way of figuring out where's, all this power going and what's causing it. So that's when i decided to get out the pico. It's got a big amp, clamp on it, just tip the tip them over. Take that amp clamp start just going around the big bundles of wires coming out of the tip them and see if you can very quickly narrow down which wires are carrying current and that really wasn't too difficult to do, because you can grab five six ten wires At a time yep, i got an amp going here, got an amp going there and then to start plucking out wires, one at a time out of the amp clamp until you find the exact wire uh, that's causing the draw throw a zip tie around it.

Move on to the next bundle and quickly narrow it down to you, know 10 15, 20 wires and then that's where we're at today and that's how we get to this point here uh. So, as i you know just mentioned, big amp clamp trying to find out where the current's going, because i was getting some real funny readings trying to do it out of the fuse box wasn't working for me, and then these are most of the circuits that i Found just you know, clipping along grabbing big bundles of wire, with the amp clamp and finding out who's going where i have all these wires here. I've got these three wires here, the single wire down here on this connector and everything else. When i clamped around, i didn't see a big, significant change, so i just took the amp clamp went around the wires that i have marked stuck them on.

That you know would start to get my readings and then added them up here, and i can almost reach the total just by the series of wires that i've narrowed it down to so i came up with a total of them of 1.910 amps. The total draw when we were clipped around the main wire going into the tipum was 1.985, so that leaves uh what 75 milliamps you know out out in the open, but using an amp clamp, i'm not super concerned. When we get down to those finer numbers. We found the majority of the draws.

I think what i'll do next is look up. A connector diagram see what these wires go to and then see. If we can make an assessment, this seems kind of bizarre. We know that the radio is hot.

The cluster is hot, the side of the tip em is hot, but can we find some kind of connection between everything here? That seems to be drawing current, which is kind of bizarre. I don't know if the tip them is just junk, but you know we clip on this. You know: we've got one well just turned off when it turns back on it's like 1.277 or something when it turns on amp. Clamps aren't the most accurate tools when it comes to this, but yeah there we go so 1.277, while it's turned on got a whole, damn clamp straight, so the jaw stays shut and now we'll watch that circuit turn back off.

Just like it was so it'll repeat the pattern and then, if i go through and you know clamp the extra wires on it, you know, obviously we can get up to our total and they all seem to kind of do the same thing. So we need to find the connection between all of this, so we've got our wire. I think we left off where we found the wires that we're drawing or most of them most of the current draw. So i grabbed a picture of the bottom of the tipums.

We can find out what connectors what and then we can go through in each pin and find out. You know who's who and what are they powered? You know we start fitting this. All together is the point that i'm at right now and then looking at the wires, i see uh we're losing. These are all the wires that have current.

You know going out of them or coming into them. Whichever uh we have. The power liftgate module uh, so one of the main powers for that on a 30 amp fuse. We've got the power sliding doors on a 40 amp fuse for the left, rear.

Uh we've got the uh a ground. Here. That's got current coming back through it. For the door lock and unlock relay front wipers tip them, and then, of course, we knew about the radio, the hvac, the sliding door, modules, power, lock, relay modules or power locks.

Of course, the cluster we saw that that was lit up and then both of the front door modules. So i'm thinking so both front door modules, the cluster, the hvac, the radio, the power liftgate module um. You know the sliding doors and i'm like man. This doesn't you know not all this stuff's bad, obviously, so what does all this having to do with each other? Well, they on a chrysler.

They have their interior, can bus and guess what runs on all of that all of this stuff. So i'm thinking there is something that's keeping the interior can bus alive. That's keeping these modules all turned on, and we could see that when we were watching that pattern on the um uh scope here around the multimeter we'd see it. You know turn on turn off turn on turn off.

You know something was turning on just kept kicking on and i think all these modules are powering up. So i'm gon na eat some lunch and try to come up with a plan here and see what we can figure out for grins and giggles. Here i plugged in uh y tech just to see what i had for codes and i had almost 100 coats when i first started. I just cleared them out because i figured people have been fiddling.

You know this came from the used car guys. So i see these are pretty consistent. We have one for the rear, wiper uh park, uh switch input circuit stuck low uh, the ones that kind of concern me here are this uh, the power liftgate front zone switch circuit high and the latch release switch performance. So something there i'm curious to know if we cut the power to this rear, liftgate module.

If, for some reason, if it, you know, stops the network from coming alive right now, it appears that the whole network is down everything. You know i've got the key off and i was just kind of curious. I was just kind of watching this to see if one of them would turn on randomly and i haven't seen anything yet if you remember when we were looking at our diagrams here. That was one of our drawers here, this j2, which is a 30 amp, and i just verified on another wiring diagram to make sure that that is what powers the liftgate module, and it appears that it is um.

I've just got to find it here. Wherever j2 is there's 11 22. they're kind of all over the place, i'm going to grab some glasses, so i can see and a light. Let's see: oh okay, there it is j2.

So that is this should be this guy right here, it's a 30 amp right there that should be j2, because that's 6, 14, 2, 19 and 1.. All right we're going to leave that out. This thing's got to sit a while for everything to time out. I'm gon na throw the amp clamp back around here, we're just doing the old, poke and hope.

Now i'm curious, if that lift gate module is going stupid and keeping things awake. I'm gon na have to unplug our computer from the data link connector because obviously that's a draw and then after half hour, so we'll come back and see what we see. So this is what it looks like the 0.687 amps, and this is uh just seconds after you know, pulling the fuse making sure the keys off unplugging the data link connector there from the laptop, but what's interesting, is we don't have that spike up over down? You know it's been going across here long enough. We got five minutes on the screen.

It was doing that about every you know, 10 seconds or so so that's that's interesting. After about a minute and a half, it dropped down to 290 milliamps or 279 milliamps. I guess quarter amp and walked by again and seen it. It was down to 182.

After about three and a half minutes. We either fixed it or the amp clamps dead, one or the other wow fix that i use that term. Loosely. Let's see here, you still working amp clamp, oh yeah, we're getting some spikeys there, no more amperage baby, or at least immeasurable, with the uh amp clamp.

So that's fun about 10 minutes or so has passed. I think it's about 10 minutes yeah, because i think that was on 808, so 10 minutes pass and our draw went away by simply removing a single fuse. Stick that back in there. Where was it? It's up here? Oh look at that now, everybody's pissed off again.

So everybody's looking at me like i got three heads. Why? Because i didn't wear my hat, but no because it simply came down to removing a fuse. Now that didn't fix the car. It proved our concept, though it proved that liftgate module is keeping all these other modules powered up, everything that runs on the interior, bus or so it seems anyways.

You know the radio, the cluster, and i guess a couple points i want to make with this. Video is a you got, ta, follow the facts so earlier when i started this car yesterday, when i looked at it yesterday, i was using a process that i always use where we take a meter and just like i've shown uh in my video or in other Videos weren't found parasitic drops, we go across each fuse and we see what current is flowing across what fuse. And then you know let that dictate our diagnosis, but as i'm doing that there was a lot of fuses that were that had current flowing across it and it wasn't making sense to me it's like you know this thing sat for an hour. I'm checking these fuses.

There's a little current going here, there's some current going here now the current's going up and down and it was being kind of crazy. So that's why i elected to say you know what let's, let's pop the tip them out. Let's flip it over find out what wires you know this current's going out on bring up our list that we did and see. If any of this starts to make sense, because you get in the game of yeah, we pull the radio fuse.

We pull the cluster fuse and the current draw starts going down and we start yanking. All these fuses modules are turning on. Modules are turning off. You just waste a whole bunch of freaking time, and even though that this this took time, but logically, we figured out simply by gathering data flipping it over.

You know throwing our big ant clamp on there kind of narrowing it down, picking out six or seven wires at a time, and just you know, throwing clamps on it: who's drawing who's, not looking at a diagram figuring out what circuits they belong to and then kind Of saying to ourselves self, what do these have to do with each other and it was the interior data bus simple, as that that's staying alive. Why and then that's when we decided to get out the scan tool. We see that there's yeah, there's codes for brake, fluid switch, there's codes for the rear wiper, and then we have these codes for the liftgate module. When you look at the sliding doors on this thing, the wiring harnesses are hanging out of the doors i mean this thing's been touched a lot, so you can really rabbit trail down in and around things, or we can use some logic and say all right.

Well, this seems to be having a problem. This all makes sense. You know, let's pluck the fuse out of that and that's how we got where we are. It's still broke.

It still needs fixed. But at this point we know 100 if we fix that lift gate. Whatever is wrong with it, whether the module is bad or the inputs to it or bad. I see it doesn't work the button on the in the front.

Does you push it? It opens when you push it, it doesn't close. The button in the back doesn't work. It doesn't close, so it has issues, but this is used car guy too. I can call him and say: hey, you, can leave your fuse out and you can.

You know work with the gate like it is, or you can put money into it, which is usually not an option with some of these car guys and uh. You know we can fix it the right way, so i'm gon na have to leave that up to him i'll give him a call i'll be back to let you know what he says: show's over folks put things back, how you found it or a little bit Better, if they're a mess, we got to get these wires fished back up and around. I think we can what's up, though, brought you something cold, oh cold beer. We're going to make it hey, don't stick it down there girl.

What do you got pure leaf? Iced tea, no sugar, all natural, just like you just like i was gon na, say something, but i didn't miss though well i was getting ready to tell the people. This is all the used car guy. We just got denied what'd, you expect. Well, i mean, i know, that's what you could say when you give them the option of either a fixing it properly or b leaving the fuse out.

I mean the thing looks like it's pretty rough. It's very rough. Some poor sucker's gon na end up with this pile of poo, but that's out of our control yeah. We do the job.

We were hired to do and uh we're just gon na verify here that we're good um yeah. So i did talk to the used car guy folks. He said, of course, just leave the fuse out of it. As long as the tailgate works.

Without the button, everybody will be happy told me he's been doing it for 54 years. This is how you do it. So that's awesome. I could never be a used car guy, though i'd be broke, yeah they would have good cars, but i would be broke so, let's see we did have a connector unplugged there, so i'm gon na let this sit for the ten minutes.

We're gon na verify that it does power back off. I left the fuse out of it. I'll probably put some kind of note under here, so nobody sticks the fuse back in it or perhaps what we could do is take a fuse rip, the guts out of it and stick it in there maybe draw an x across it. You know, leave a note.

Don't replace this fuse, your battery's gon na die do not replace that's the best. I could come up with lisa somebody says: hey the power. Liftgate doesn't work. First thing they might check is the fuse.

Maybe then we're just going to come and kind of rip. The guts out of it here, like so just make sure they can't touch so now, that's empty. At least somebody won't see an empty or missing fuse. We can stick that back in there and then that way when they yank it out.

At least somebody might know some day in the future, and that was what j2 or something j j2, and that is labeled under here as a transfer case, module power liftgate module. So it is labeled as something that somebody may look at so anyhow and there you are after about uh 10 minutes. It comes down to below a readable amount of the amp clamp, because these have a tendency to float zero. It out here anything below about 50 milliamps.

I really don't trust them, but i mean it's clear that our current draw is far below the specs that it needs to be. I wish i could bring along on the real fix folks, you and i both know that removing the fuse is not the problem. You know it's either an input problem, a stuck switch, you know the ratchet mechanism or whatever in the back is goofy. You know so something there is is broken, keeping that module alive and awake, therefore, keeping all the other uh interior modules alive and awake and killing the battery so pulling the fuse.

Is that the fix? No, this guy's fixed so we'll leave it at that? Don't leave me hanging, you go in that comment, section the questions, the comments, the instead, the facebook. You all know what to do and just remember viewers. If i can do it, you can do it thanks for watching.