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• olesniper Senior Member Posts: 3,767 Senior Member

  January 2017 #2

  Little over a year ago, my Patriot started acting wonky. Be running fine, then the EMC light , on the dash, would come on and it would start running real rough. Be driving down the road, in cruise control, start up a hill and it would surge suddenly. Sometimes, you could pull over, shut it off, and wait a couple of minutes and it would run fine, maybe for a half hour , maybe for 5 minutes. Dealer found some sort of modular, on the bottom of the throttle body that had a stripped plastic gear in it. They said the EMC was trying to compensate for it not working , causing it to run rough, surge , and throw out weird engine codes. I have a B to B aftermarket warranty, so they replaced the entire throttle body. Bill was $400+, parts and labor. I paid $100.

  Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
  I will fear no evil: For I carry a .308 and not a .270

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• tennmike Senior Member Posts: 27,457 Senior Member

  January 2017 #3

  olesniper wrote: »

  Little over a year ago, my Patriot started acting wonky. Be running fine, then the EMC light , on the dash, would come on and it would start running real rough. Be driving down the road, in cruise control, start up a hill and it would surge suddenly. Sometimes, you could pull over, shut it off, and wait a couple of minutes and it would run fine, maybe for a half hour , maybe for 5 minutes. Dealer found some sort of modular, on the bottom of the throttle body that had a stripped plastic gear in it. They said the EMC was trying to compensate for it not working , causing it to run rough, surge , and throw out weird engine codes. I have a B to B aftermarket warranty, so they replaced the entire throttle body. Bill was $400+, parts and labor. I paid $100.

  
  Engineers must be smoking, eating, snorting, and shooting crack simultaneously now. Why would any engineer with the intelligence of a **** amoeba put plastic parts on an engine where the engine gets HOT? Granted, there are some plastics that will work in high heat environments, but they don't get used too much in consumer stuff; too expen$$$$ive. Injection molded pot metal is just as easy to make as injection molded plastic and will at least stand the heat.
  
  I guess the automotive engineers now don't study heat flow anymore. :tooth:

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• Teach Senior Member Posts: 18,428 Senior Member

  January 2017 #4

  Automotive PCM's live by the same rules as any other computer- - - - -GIGO. Give it the wrong information, and it spits out the wrong results. Things like throttle position, intake manifold vacuum, coolant temperature, atmospheric pressure, mass airflow, etc. can all conspire to give the control unit bad data. Intermittent problems are the absolute worst ones to find- - - -I built a pretty successful career diagnosing problems other guys would give up on Check out all the wire harness connections for looseness or corrosion and if possible, have someone run a diagnosis with a scan tool that allows you to monitor individual signal voltages instead of just reading trouble codes. The code is just a signpost pointing to which system or circuit needs a more in-depth diagnostic procedure. Good luck!
  Jerry

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