Yesterday, I took our 44k mile SRT6 out for a 175 mile road trip. This car has been sitting covered up for the last couple of years, but suffice it to say, it is in about perfect condition. Before I left, I made some mistakes. First, I didn't pack my usual tool kit that I carry in all of my other Crossfires, nor did I carry the required-by-all-Crossfire-owners spares kit consisting of an RCM and a Crank Position Sensor (CKP). It was 95° yesterday, and guess what happened? Yup, the crank sensor failed about 50 miles into my trip! Car was dead. On the side of the road. Cranked hopelessly. No tools, no spares! I did have a bluetooth OBDII reader, and it told me what was going on, though. All I had was a bottle of water and time I hadn't planned on using. With the hood up, waiting for things to cool down, I searched online for parts. No parts stores within 50 miles had what I needed, but there was a CKP available at an O'Reilly's in Panama City (my destination). After waiting 10 minutes, I poured some water directly on the sensor (to help cool it), and the car fired up. I made it 15 more miles, and it died again. Pushing the car into a convenience store parking lot, I let it cool, and it ran again for about 20 miles. Rinse and repeat. After several more forced delays, I finally made it to the O'Reilly's, purchased a tool kit and the sensor. It took about 20 minutes to install a new sensor into the hot engine, and the car was fine all the way home. This was about as "new" as most Crossfires will be, and it still left me on the side of the road. Don't be a victim! Be prepared for the most common failures your Crossfire will have.
Couldn't find a better pic of this car, but it has had the headlamps polished and centercaps put on. Neither of those keep you off the side of the road, though.
In short, your Crossfire should have at a minimum:
- Tool kit with require e-Torx bits to change the sensor (E8, BTW)
- Spare RCM (that is known to work)
- Spare CKP (BOSCH!)
- Tire plug kit and a working air compressor
I screwed up by not having ANY of this in our "newer" Crossfire. In addition, I also carry fuses, a Li-Ion battery jump pack, nitrile gloves, and rags. The Bluetooth OBDII readers are dirt cheap, and apps on your phone (I use Android w/the Torque app) are enough to give you an idea of what is wrong with the engine, albeit they won't do much more than that.