Another MIL question

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Michael Bromley - 05 Apr 2005 00:28 GMT

I have a 2004 Ram 1500 Quad Cab XLT with the 5.7L Hemi.

Driving to work his morning I turned on the A/C with the defrost to help
clear the windshield and the MIL came on. The on-off-on-off-on doesn't
return any codes. I tried the cluster test by holding in the trip reset
while turning the key to on. At the completion of the test the odometer
showed the word "codes" then "00 00". I'm not sure if this is just a self
test of the codes digits or it's telling me there are no codes. Considering
the age of the truck and the fact I gassed it up yesterday I'm assuming the
MIL is telling me I didn't have the gas cap tight.

Anything else I might be missing?

Thanks,

Mike

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Tom Lawrence - 05 Apr 2005 01:07 GMT

> clear the windshield and the MIL came on. The on-off-on-off-on doesn't
> return any codes.

Did the odometer just read 'Pdone'? If not, you didn't do it correctly.

> while turning the key to on. At the completion of the test the odometer
> showed the word "codes" then "00 00". I'm not sure if this is just a self
> test of the codes digits or it's telling me there are no codes.

Those are instrument cluster codes (if any - which you didn't have), and are
separate from the OBD-II diagnostic codes.

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Michael Bromley - 05 Apr 2005 04:20 GMT

>> clear the windshield and the MIL came on. The on-off-on-off-on doesn't
>> return any codes.
>
> Did the odometer just read 'Pdone'? If not, you didn't do it correctly.

No, it didn't. It just displayed the normal mileage. I'll have to try it
again.

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Michael Bromley - 05 Apr 2005 20:24 GMT

>>> clear the windshield and the MIL came on. The on-off-on-off-on doesn't
>>> return any codes.
[quoted text clipped - 3 lines]
> No, it didn't. It just displayed the normal mileage. I'll have to try it
> again.

Well, I never could get the odometer to read "Pdone" but it's a moot point
now. The light went out this morning. :)

I think I'll write this one off to a loose gas cap.

Mike

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Tom Lawrence - 06 Apr 2005 03:39 GMT

> Well, I never could get the odometer to read "Pdone" but it's a moot point
> now. The light went out this morning. :)

Okay - just so we're clear... the 'ON' position is where all the dash
lights light up, and you can operate the heater blower motor. 'OFF' is just
one click back - not two clicks, where you can then remove the key. So,
starting from 'OFF', you go to 'ON', then back to 'OFF', then to 'ON', then
to 'OFF', then to 'ON' and leave it there. You do this quickly, within 2
seconds or so. Believe me - it does work, and it works on every Ram, from
2000 on up.

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Michael Bromley - 07 Apr 2005 00:38 GMT

>> Well, I never could get the odometer to read "Pdone" but it's a moot
>> point now. The light went out this morning. :)
[quoted text clipped - 6 lines]
> within 2 seconds or so. Believe me - it does work, and it works on every
> Ram, from 2000 on up.

I believe you, Tom. :) I'm sure it must be something I'm doing, or not
doing, that's keeping me from getting the Pdone indication. It's not that
hard so I don't know how I could be screwing it up.

I don't know if this makes a difference or not, but less than a week after I
took delivery of the truck the instrument cluster died. I found out when I
tried to unlock it one morning and the fob wouldn't work. Neither would the
spare fob. To make things worse, a rod had come loose from the key lock in
the drivers door so I had no way to get into the truck! It was towed back
to the dealer who replaced the cluster. The thing that annoyed me more than
anything was that when I picked up the truck it had 260 more miles on it
than when the cluster died. When I questioned them about it I was told that
they estimated how many miles would have been on a truck that old and if I
really wanted it fixed they would have to order another cluster. I figured
in the big scheme of things 260 miles wouldn't be that big of a deal in a
year or two so I let it slide.

Mike

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