This is my friend's stock, fairly clean 99 Sport with 118K miles. I've done a good bit of the basic maintenance on it since she bought it, so I'm reasonably familiar with the vehicle.

Twice now, she has been driving with the engine warm (~20-30 miles) and it has abruptly shut down as though the key were turned off. It will not restart. Both times it was towed to a garage (two separate ones) and both times the mechanic reported that it started and drove just fine. It has never thrown a code when this happens. The two events were three weeks apart, and it ran perfectly well in between.

I've searched the forum for ideas and haven't seen anything exactly like this. It seems from the threads that a failing crank position sensor usually (sometimes?) throws a code, and further, it evidences some poor performance rather than this on/off behavior.

On advice of a trusted mechanic I know, I replaced the pickup coil (cam position sensor) in the distributor. Other than obviously being old and hardened, there was no obvious deterioration.

I'd really like to fix this for her, since her commute is almost entirely on congested streets and this is becoming dangerous.

 

My 96 did that and it was the cps. Mine never threw a code though.

 

It does sound like the CPS is on it's way out. A lot of the time it will not put out any codes. That is why so many shops have a hard time figuring out the problem

 

Another vote for the CPS, though it's not the only possibility, of course.

 

Mine did same thing.Run 30 min.-go dead.Sit and rest/cool off & run fine.

CPS.

 

My ole 88 did the same thing. Replaced the CPS, fixed. GL!

 

That sounds pretty much unanimous. I'll pick up a CPS.

Thanks.

 

Do yourself a favor and buy a MOPAR crank sensor from Jeep. Aftermarket crank sensors are "hit and miss" with a lot of miss.

A Mopar sensor will give you the best reliability and longevity.

 

Had my 2000 die like that twice. Let it sool off and it restarted.
Then finally, wouldn't restart again. New crank sensor did the trick.
Don't get the $10 one off ebay. (Don't laugh too hard, had to learn for myself.)

Buy two, with a replacement warranty. A couple places will do that.

I also had issues with my coolant sensor. That will shut the engine if it's faulty. Thinks it's overheating.

 

I did replace the crank position sensor today, with a NAPA unit (needed to get the car on the road, and not sure I could find a Mopar one this morning).

We'll see. If it runs more than three weeks, I think it's good.