Mike Larbre Automotive Sonoma Auto Repair

Jeff we listened carefully to your description of what has been going wrong with the accelerator system, you had replaced the TPS trying to remedy it, and understood clearly this has been an intermittent problem since visiting a stereo shop. The "intermittent" part of this can be a problem with diagnosis because without the fault occurring it can just be a shot in the dark but there are somethings to consider before just saying we won't do anything until it fails. This was a complaint that we could not verify during our road testing. So how we approach this kind of problem is realizing there could have been useful information in fault codes stored in the ECM when the problem did occurred. A quick scan of all control units revealed there we no codes in the ECM, however, there were in the ABS and Body Control modules and we spent some time reviewing any relevent TSB's and the code descriptions in order to find a correlation with your symptom and there was none. We spent some further time driving the truck monitoring the live data that the ECM is seeing from all the engine and transmission inputs and found nothing out of line or on the "ragged" edge of being out of line that could lead us in the right direction for a cause. During this drive time we are also attempting to operate the vehicle in any circumstance it may encounter because a particular speed, throttle position, or load may be what is needed to duplicate it. At this point with these types of situations we do an "ECM reboot". Also recommended that if the problem returns install a factory Dodge TPS and be sure to set it up correctly or have us do it as a problem with the aftermarket pieces do occur from time to time. Between myself and my tech we spent about 2 hours as doing this kind work just takes time and we charged you for 1.5 hr. Very sorry we did not have more for you or an absolute resolution but that's all we could have done at that point and it is possible the reboot could resolve the issue. Yes I agree it seems silly we did not fill the ATF during our routine checks that we also went through during this time, but before we spend your money the fluid we use is Red Line type C at a cost of about $18.00 per. qt. we would rather tell you about it and fill it if you want us to. We do not recall asking you If you wanted us to fill it or if we just mentioned the fact to you. You certainly should have been asked if you wanted it filled and if we did not ask you I apoligize. Thank you, Mike