Died, restarted, wouldn't move?

[mspeasl]

Gang,

Got what I think is a new one for you. This morning I had to go into work for a couple of hours before going to church. When I arrived at work I went to back into a parking space like I do every morning. I cranked the wheels hard right and placed the selector into “R” and the motor just up and died. There was no jerk or anything. It just died. It was almost like a manual transmission car that the clutch was released to quickly and no gas pedal was applied. Well I was surprised to say the least. I placed the selector up into “Park” and restarted the motor. No problem as it restarted just like it should have. The next problem occurred when I placed the selector back into “Reverse” again. No the motor didn’t die or anything like that, it just sat there and did not move. I gave it a little gas and still nothing. I moved it into “Drive” and still no movement?? I placed it back into “Reverse” and still nothing?? I then put it up into “Park” and waited a couple of seconds and then placed it back into “Reverse”?? Still no movement or nothing!! Now I was starting to get a little concerned. I placed the selector back into “Park” again and shut off the engine this time and waited for a second and then restarted it. This time when I placed the transmission into “Reverse” the car moved backward into the parking space like it was supposed to have done when I first arrived. Needless to say I was relieved to say the least. At 5:00am on a Sunday morning I was not going to be able to call the local Chrysler Dealers service department for help. I know that the 300C has an Electronic Transmission and it is controlled by the on board computer. But what caused it to die in the first place and then what caused the events that came next?? Any Ideas??

Thanks,

[CottyGee]

I think the powersteering pump is what killed your car. Just guessing here, mind you. But let me ask you a quesiton - when you cranked the steering wheel over, did you go all the way to the stop and keep pressure on? If you did, that's almost certainly what killed your engine.

I don't understand all the details, but when you hold a powersteering pump against its stops, it is really hard on the pump. The pump is furiously pumping as hard as it can against solid iron (the steering stops). This causes the pump to offer vastly increased resistance - demanding more power from the engine to keep the pump turning. But of course, all the energy being produced has to go somewhere, and it can't go into turning the wheels, because they're already up against iron. So all that energy gets turned into heat - and in this case, resistence sufficient to kill the engine.

Now, to my way of thinking, the sensors should have told the computer what was going on, and the car should have increased its idle. So maybe something IS wrong. Or perhaps the way it happened to occur in this instance was just too quick for the computer to catch up, so it gave up and let the engine die, rather than try a clumsy recovery.

If you are in the habit of cranking the wheel to the stops and holding it there, I'd suggest you work on not doing that. It's okay to go to the stop - just back off an inch or two after. You'll hear the powersteering pump's sound change when you've backed off enough.

That's just my layman's guess. As for the trans, I have no earthly idea, other than to venture a guess that maybe it was "stuck" in some electronic limbo, and got "rebooted" when you restarted the car.


If it were my car, I'd have 'em look into it the next time I brought it to the dealer for service. ODBII is pretty amazing in the level of detail it provides. Your onboard diagnostics may have some information regarding exactly what happened.

[kampsvilleboy]

Read this first paragraph on page 220 of your owner's manual. I think this might apply to your situation....

[CottyGee]

Yup - for the trans part anyway...

[lgret13]

same thing has happened to me once and has never happened again. i thought it was bad gas because the day before i Filled up at a different gas staion (hess) than i normally do (exxon, mobil or sunoco). but the only thing i noticed different from your situation was that my oil pressure light came on. After it restarted i check the oil levels and it fine. its been about 2 months since it happened

[arnoldw]

This happened to me a few months ago...twice. The first time I shifted from D to R, it stalled for no reason. I shifted to N , restarted and back to R and experienced a huge delay (at least 5 sec.) before it shifted. I read about this in the manual but in my haste I forgot to turn the ingition off before restarting. The second time it happened (a few days later), I remembered to shut it off first and it shifted in ok. As for the stalling, the steering pump didn't cause it to stall. The service manual says a possible reason could be a sticking convertor clutch. Anyways, it hasn't happened since.

[CottyGee]

Good info, Arnold. Tho the idea of any kind of issue at all with the torque converter isn't very comforting at all!

[rdmac]

This car and its SW in regards to the transmission seems to have a mind of its own. It seems like there are issues and it needs to reset some how before things are OK. There are a lot of first year gremlins here. I have never experienced this before with a car.

Bob

[mspeasl]

Originally Posted by rdmac

This car and its SW in regards to the transmission seems to have a mind of its own. It seems like there are issues and it needs to reset some how before things are OK. There are a lot of first year gremlins here. I have never experienced this before with a car.

Bob

Bob,

What does "SW" mean?

[CottyGee]

SW = SoftWare??