Went to start my 99 Grand Cherokee 4.0 and got a couple clicks then nothing, no lights on dash, nothing, turned key off , pulled key out then all dash gauges went from O to max and back to O did this 3-4 times, put key back in and turned and nothing, no lights or anything, pulled key back out and gauges mover again for 5-10 seconds , can some one tell me what happened and how to fix it. Thanks jeep Buddys

 

Check your grounds! I had the same thing happen last winter. Had to get it jump-started, then the gauges went to full sweeps and the tach and speedo went to max and stayed there. As long as it was running I drove directly to Battery World for a new battery. When the guy put a load test on it, it put out good amps...for 30 seconds! Then it fell on it's face. Put the new battery in and refreshed the clamps. Good it go. It seems the battery had a intercell link that opened when it got hot from a draw.

It seems any time the system voltage drops too low, weird things happen. All the gauges get their information for the PCM and not the sensors. The sensors send data to the PCM and then IT tells the gauges what to read.