Originally Posted by wolfstalker

Today's adventure: I found a link to a department at FCA and emailed them to ask some questions. Amazingly a nice young man called me back in a few minutes and told me he is the one that has been involved in this situation for several years. He explained to me what is going on - roughly as follows:

Mercedes wants nothing to do with Crossfires - as we know. They -he says - control the system because the coding of the SKREEMS is done on some system - hardware and proprietary software - and they don't want to let Chrysler use it anymore. When SKREEMS were ordered in the past, the orders came to this young man, and he sent the part and or the code - which is proprietary and controlled solely by Chrysler - to someone at Mercedes who did it - then sent it back. I don't think was an actual physical transfer of the actual SKREEM module, but somehow done online because I think he said it was done in Stuttgart! (See the messy situation we are in?) Benz won't sell the parts from their inventory to Chrysler. He said he only has a Skreem case he uses for a paperweight on his desk - no real ones. He said - because this unit is used in the Sprinter vans where they fail too, he has 600 vehicles on his list that need and have ordered one - but can't do anything for them as he has no parts to allocate.

He told me he has been in meetings about this issue constantly. LAWYERS for both sides are arguing about it - MB has the system rights sewed up but Chrysler controls the codes - as I thought. He realizes it is bad for customers - wants to solve it, and has what he called an important meeting about it tomorrow, but didn't want to say anything about it together my hopes up. I felt he really cares since he called me right back within minutes of my email, but nothing too hopeful and no promises. He said Chrysler was trying to get modules from another supplier, but the hangup was Mercedes not allowing their proprietary system to be used, Discouraging, at best.

However, within an hour of my sending the stuff about getting Michael Moore involved and trailering my car up there to shoot a video, I got a call from my other contact, the gent I believe was assigned by Manley to deal with this. He did not seem to be aware of how this antediluvian system has been working, but has been back in touch with the dealer I wrote about yesterday. He said that when he called the dealer the Parts Manager said, "Yes, he (me) was here yesterday but did not order the part." I told him what the dealer said - as have all the other dealers I contacted - that I could order the part, must pay for it, about $540., non-refundable, and no estimate of when it would be provided. I told him I had already done that with Needswings, but that the ETA for the parts kept moving forward - now mid-January - and I was not going to pay up front to a dealership for some part they know nothing about and can't tell me when they will have it.

He said, he would call the dealers parts manager back and tell him to order the part for me from Chrysler and he would pay for it! And that he would get back to me about further news. I don't know if he understands what the system or the bottleneck is, but we'll see what happens.

You know what I know. I'm trying to solve this. Today was better than yesterday, because at least I know a little more about how this works. Trying to unravel this nightmare.

One last thought. If this doesn't get fixed so that the 600 plus waiting for a properly coded SKREEM have the confidence that if another unit malfunctions they can get their vehicles fixed both Sprinters and crossfires have sharply diminished values. I know the people who don't have a problem may not be impressed with the immediate seriousness of our situation, but the truth is, without access through the dealer network to these properly coded modules, any of our vehicles are living precarious lives. Values of the Crossfires are already depressed, perhaps Sprinters as well - I don't know that market. But knowing what I now know, I wouldn't be interested in buying one. Who would.

Chrysler has had similar problems with the 2.7 V6 motor. The design has some serious flaws that have caused catastrophic engine failures in hundreds or thousands of cars and are well documented. My own Sebring convert with that engine just went over 100K, a point where many of them have had water pump failure that causes coolant to enter the engine and ruins the timing chain system, causing the engines to self destruct. When this happens you need a new $6000 engine and the coin to get it installed. On older cars it is usually not worth fixing, so those owners need another car. If you want to preemptively do a new water pump, you need to do the timing chain setup as well - so the bill is about $3-4,000. Situations like this destroy a manufacturers reputation - just look at the comments online about that engine. But in a way, our situation is even worse, because, at least those situations are fixable. The Skreem situation is not. Maybe we are lucky that the Sprinters are also being infected with this bug, and that volume of sales may cause them to fix this - somehow. I'll keep you informed as to what transpires. I can't afford to just junk my flowerpot, and I assume many others are in the same situation. I need this fixed now - as I am not getting any younger or newer. So far, my recovery from the colon situation is going great, but still, I'm pushing the actuarial stats. FYI, my father came home from his Pharmacy, took a lie down while my mom was fixing dinner, and twenty minutes later she found him dead. Massive coronary He was 38 and I was nine. So you never know. I do't want to and will not leave this issue unresolved.