I wish there was a solution, but I must say, I do not see this going anywhere. Chrysler has almost ZERO reason to put any effort into this, and given the B.S. in the evolution of the car and the merger, and then the breakup, this may not be as easy as some of you insist that it is (I mean for them to resolve this). Yes, of course I could be wrong; but in electronic manufacture is it NOT always as easy as grabbing an item off a shelf. There were patent and other considerations here - there were odd issues with cars being stolen in Europe at the time and in order for insurers to keep insuring them, the car had to be "un steal able" - this from Clink Spevak (retired engineer from Chrysler, he was in on the airbag/ABS/TPMS system). I am not clear on what changes were made and when they were made as the SLK320 faded into the sunset and the Crossfire was made; Clint started to get into that and got interrupted. (This was at our last event...)


BEST I can think of to do is what I am doing ---- take steps to protect your SKREEM as a part of maintenance. For those with a nuked SKREEM, I know it's too late, but for most of us, it is not. Personally, I've owned three Roadsters in ten years, driving them a total of over 100,000 miles, never had a SKREEM problem. No one individual in my vast personal Crossfire circle that I can think of has had a failure. But it DOES happen.

I've thought about what could nuke the little module that Dave (180) has shown you a photo of. After more than thirty years in electronics, most of which is aftermarket automotive electronics (I work as an R&D engineer for Kenwood), I suspect that I have a clue or two as to why they are failing. But I do not KNOW for sure; I look at the electronic issues we have with the SKREEM, RCM, Fan Modules, etc., and compare them to the battles I fight at work to keep our products reliable and I think I see some ways in which we as owners can possibly protect what is apparently a vulnerable item in the electronics of the car. No guarantees here, friends, but after thirty years (the first 20 were in repair at the component level, where you learn a LOT but earn NO money) I do have guidelines I follow myself.


Anyway, to that end, I have done and I'd recommend the following:

1) Do this cheap, easy, $20 modification to your car, it will stabilize the ground reference between block/alternator and chassis/battery. This is a VERY good idea in general. Note James has one way of doing it, I have another. Take your pick.
https://www.crossfireforum.org/forum...le-engine.html

2) When storing your car for MONTHS on end, remove the battery and put it on a maintainer/charger. My point here is that connecting 'maintainers' or chargers of any kind opens the car's electrical system up to any oddities in the charger/maintainer. Some of these products are half-assed, cheap, poorly designed, poorly regulated devices. Connecting the known-fussy and sensitive electronics of a Crossfire to one of them is simply ignorant and foolish. (I can hear it now, "they are designed for this...." Yea, ask me about that sometime; ask me about Chinese engineering and quality non-control.)

3) On Convertibles, do not put the top up or down without the engine running. The spikes from the motor switching on and off are pretty vulgar, having the alternator charging creates a situation where the battery is "floated" above nominal charge and actually helps with filtering.

4) At 48 months, replace the battery - weak batteries are not as capable of filtering as described in 3) above. I did not listen to my own advice and let my SEs battery go over four years. I need an airbag module now.
While on this topic, and this is a part of item 1) above, keep a good eye on the battery terminals, posts, clamps. They need to be CLEAN and TIGHT at all times. A resistive connection (caused by lose clamps or corrosion) represents resistance and that decreases the effective filtering of the battery.

5) FOR CRYING OUT LOUD, DO NOT jump start a Crossfire with another vehicle. And do not use a Crossfire to jump start another vehicle. Use a "booster battery" or "starting battery" instead.

That is the best I can think of for now. The above are general things I do anyway, even with my Ford Ranger truck - due to the fact I have lived in the aftermarket auto electronics world for so long.




Mark Christopher
Field Applications Engineer
R&D | Communications Sector
JVCKenwood USA,
Irving Texas