Instrum panel gauges off - all warning lights lit?

[69GTX]

My son's 2008 Dodge Caravan with 120K miles just gave him the symptoms of no working instruments and all the red/yellow warning lights lit up. It starts fine and he can drive. No battery speedometer and no battery voltage.

Since he's 1,000 miles away from me I'd figure I'd post this here first. Sounds like an IP PCU/PCM failure. Or maybe a fuse - though not sure how that would light up all the warning lights. He did say it's very hot today at 106 deg F. Batteries don't last long in his region. But this battery is nearly new. I told him to check firewall grounds, fuses, varmit chewed wires, anything electrical that's loose. Told him to get a $6 volt-ohm-amp meter. Doesn't sound like battery or alternator issue. But at this age and mileage, things will start to fail.

Any other ideas to pass along?

 

[L_Sludger]

Lost instruments - I had this before on my Acura after water ingress caused a circuit breaker to trip. A replacement fuse fixed it.
Dash lights lit up like Christmas - On some old Toyotas that usually meant the Alternator was not working correctly.
Can he go to an AutoZone or the like to get the battery and charging circuit a clean bill of health?

 

[Chris Meutsch]

Is that vintage prone to the TIPC beginning to fail and throwing these symptoms?

 

[tgrudzin]

1st Generation Dodge Neons would do this, bad solder on the instrument cluster panel. Might be the same. But really, don't go after the worst case scenario. I don't think it is a IP PCU/PCM failure. Continue searching. Maybe a Dodge forum. Keep intouch.

 

[69GTX]

Thanks. Just did some google and UTube searching. Doing an IP self-test would be in order. Any codes would appear there. Very easy to do by pushing the trip/miles button down on the dash cluster for a few seconds.

Also it seems the HAZARD Fuse wire under the TIPM is known to corrode away giving these indications.

Another glitch on these cars are white/orange wires in the driver's door harness wearing through under constant flexing. In those instance you should see some odd things like the wipers running on their own. So the HAZ fuse is a must check. Also the IOD yellow fuse on the TIPM can blow and give these same symptoms. So some easy things we can check. Grounding is a big issue.

 

[69GTX]

In perusing the Dodge Caravan forums, this happens a lot....and when they show up at a dealership they got the story that they've never seen such a problem before...lol. One post I found was 9 pages long with a hundred different owners. Own your Dodge long enough and this seems to be a high probability affair.

Other simple fixes that they tried:

Tapping the top of the instrument panel. Often provides temp relief for months.
Removing battery cables and cleaning them up...including the auxiliary wire which can even corrode internally.
Looking under the TPIM fuse box after removing the battery. Often there are corroded and broken wires found.
Probably a third of the time they got a fix just by disconnecting and reconnecting the battery cables!

 

[JHZR2]

What's your battery voltage? Got this when my battery had a shorted cell.

 

[69GTX]

Originally Posted By: JHZR2
What's your battery voltage? Got this when my battery had a shorted cell.


Haven't talked to my son since the 1st post. I'd imagine battery voltage is just fine considering it's a new battery and car starts like normal. I did ask him to buy a voltmeter and do some basic V/ohm/A checks. From reading a number of Dodge, Chrysler Van blogs, these instrument panels are quite common. I've only experienced IP issues one time in my life....when the battery was on the way out and was putting out low voltage.

 

[69GTX]

The symptoms have been fixed by removing the battery terminals for 1/2 hr and doing a thorough cleaning of everything. That seemed to help the most people on those other blogs.

As to the "why," we may never know the exact source. But my son will look into the wiring a bit further (such as under the engine bay TIPM/fuse box). At any time, one last touch of corrosion or fraying on the wrong wire, or thinning solder, and down it goes. In his particular situation he had just finished gassing up the vehicle when it occurred on the next start up. So it wasn't like a huge shock had just occurred to the vehicle.