Hey everyone, I'm new to the board here and to this car but could really use some help on this one... I'm stumped.

My fiance' has a 2004 sebring, non covertible. Several months ago it was broken into, the thief attempted to steal the car by busting the column and jamming something into the ignition cylinder. Long story short on all that is that the column was swapped with a junk yard one and the ignition as well as SKIM was replaced at the dealership with new parts... mind you she had basic coverage so this is was all out of pocket.

The problem I'm having right now and refuse to pay the dealer anymore $$ to not fix is an intermittant run issue. I can turn the igition on, whatch all the insturment lights cycle and start the car fine. Other times, I can do the same and the red indicator light for the theft system will blink and of course the car will run for a few seconds and die. I cannot find ANY cycle to this at all, and do not know what direction to go in troubleshooting at this point. The dealership is not real helpful at this point with what exactly has been done or what troubleshooting has been completed this far. I'm irritated beyond belief with 'em and am getting useless information at best when I've tried to get some feedback.

I've pulled the dash back apart, verified all the wiring and all looks good. There was a non factory remote start at one point, I've removed it entirely from the car so it's no longer in the equation.

The last time it failed for me I started pulling plugs from the white computer behind the drivers kick panel and it worked fine for a while... then failed again. My thoughts there are it was a coincidence.

I can lock and unlock with the key, no change. I can lock and unlock with the key fob and no change.

If there's a way to disable this POS all together I'd be thrilled. We're sharing my 300 right now, it's a pain and I really want to get this thing mobile asap.

Any help is appreciated, thanks in advance!

 

if U have a faulty skim module installed by the dealer there warranty is 12 months 12k miles
It sounds as if a skim issue let them look at it.

 

Yeah, I agree with you on that. I'm leaning against it, mainly because they swapped that part out 4 times already... 3 new keys too.

Thats about the only feedback I've gotten from them, aside from the statement that the computer seems to be forgetting the chip programming. I don't really get the idea on that too much, seems like if it lost the programming it would fail completely and not be an intermittant fault.

Still kind of stumped on this one, grrr.