I have a 2001 Jeep Cherokee. I bought it used about 3 months ago. I posted awhile ago about an electrical gremlin. When I woulkd be moving and lock my doors, the doors locked, the rear wiper swept once, the interior lights flashed and the horn honked. Never got a solid recommednation on what that was.

Then my dash got the no bus issue. I cleaned it and that seemed to fix it for a month, now its acting up again. Tried a couple other dashes with same result - any help with that would be great but I have given up.

No a new issue as of yesterday. Power door locks became intermittent - go to lock and it may lock the door or may not - makes a clicking sound (doesnt matter driver or passenger) and the lights in the cosole (4 wheel drive selector, gear indicator, rear defroster button) come on when you hold the lock button. Occassionaly the horn honks. Before that only happened when it was running - now all the time.

It had an aftermarket remote start which I removed last night carefully - no crossed wires and everything patched back up except a lone skinny brown wire that seemed to come from the harness but have no end. Doesnt appear to be related but I am sure will eventually cause me yet more trouble.

Its a complicated little beast - radiator fluid dissapearing but no leak, not in the oil and notburning it. Runs like a dream, 4wheel drive is flawless, not a lick of rust. Just odd cooling and electrical.

Any suggestins great - pics / identificaton of the wiring paths for the power locks or an idea of where wires mught be crossing or shorting. Anything would be appreciated. I love this thing to much to get rid of it but its starting to get ridiculous.

Thanks everyone!

 

There seems to be no rhyme nor reason to all those electrical problems. Try cleaning all the grounds in your engine bay. Disconnect each ground and make sure there is no corrosion on the wire terminal ends, then secure them. Here's some images of the grounds in a '99 XJ. They will be similar to yours, except you won't have an ignition coil at G101. Verify that both battery cable connectors are free from corrosion and are secure.

How old is your battery? They're only good for about three years.

 

My first thought on this was that of a botched alarm or remote starter install, which is pretty common on used Jeep purchases. If you will post a picture of the brown-wire harness, we should be able to figure out where it belongs.

Are there any aftermarket alarm boxes behind the dash? Extra wiring that doesn't belong? Is it possible that ground wires to the engine block and/or chassis have been removed? Ground problems are a very good place to start when looking for intermittant electrical problems.