Top 5 Problems Chrysler 200 Sedan 1st Generation 2011-14

Hey, friends. It's Len from 1A Auto. Today, we have another Top Problems for you. This one's gonna be on a First Gen Chrysler 200. This is a 2013. Let's get started.

The first problem that I want to talk about in this video involves the master window switch. Some of the symptoms that you might notice if you're having an issue with the window switch would be the fact that maybe one or even multiple of your windows don't seem to want to work. And if they do, it's kind of just intermittent and they do, kind of, what they want. With that said, let's get right into it over here on the driver's door.

So right on this rail right here is where the master switch is. You can see it's got all four switches. It's also got a lock and a thing for the mirror there. If you were to pop this up and out of the door, you're gonna be able to see all the electrical connectors on the backside. Typically, what can happen is, of course, if you're driving around in the rain or even if you left the window down on accident, you might potentially get a little bit of moisture down in here.

If you were to look down into the switches, you can see where some of the moisture might puddle up. And if it makes its way into the circuit board, inside the switch, of course, you're gonna have an issue. Turning this back over, if you were to look at this right here, let's see if I can get the wiring off, right inside there you want to look to see if there's any funny colors. Okay? If you see any funny colors, that's probably corrosion and would have to do with moisture, and that's going to be a very big issue. I would always check all my connectors and, of course, take a peak down along this web. If you wanted to continue pulling this apart to look on the inside for corrosion, that's up to you.

But pretty much at this point, what I would do is pretty much ohm out the wires to make sure that I know that the wire from the actual switch to the motor that's causing the issue, whether it's the left rear door or the right rear door or so on, make sure that there's no wiring issues because if you happen to have a wiring issue, maybe a pinch or even a tear or a break in one of the wires, well, you're gonna have an issue. With that said, I'm just gonna go ahead and put this back together. But overall, it's a typical problem for the master switch to go bad so this would be the first thing that I would go ahead and test and more than likely replace.

Now, for the second problem on this particular vehicle, we're gonna be sitting inside the car for the majority of it. Let's say you're inside, you warmed up the car, but for some reason, there's just no heat coming out of any of your vents. The blower motor's on, it's on, temperature at hot but for some reason, there's no heat. We'd like to figure out what's going on, I want to tell you what the first common thing is, and that's your heater core. The heater core on this particular vehicle tends to get blocked up internally. Whether it's something that has to do with your coolant that's either breaking down inside and making deposits or something that's inside the coolant, maybe something such as a contaminant that's clogging up the inside portion of that heater core.

The heater core is essentially like a radiator that your coolant's gonna flow through. As the coolant flows through it, or the hot coolant from your engines flowing through it, it's gonna heat up the heater core. You turn on your blower motor, maybe one, two, three, or even high, it's supposed to draw air from outside, pull it through that radiator/heater core that's inside your dash right here, and heat up the air before it comes through the vents to you to warm you up on that nice, cold winter day.

So to fix this, not only would I go ahead and flush the entire cooling system for the vehicle here, I would actually go directly to the heater core. To do that, I would go ahead and take off both of these hoses right there. You might notice that some coolant comes out so you need to, of course, have a coolant bucket, which I'm sure you would anyways. Take off both those hoses, and then I would try to apply pressure from a garden hose of some sort straight into one of them.

Once you power up that hose, get it as much pressure as possible, and watch what comes out the other side. What you might happen to notice is some chunks of stuff or even maybe some debris for some reason, but basically by going directly to this, you're gonna apply the most amount of pressure to it and it's gonna be the most helpful overall. Do it on one side and then go ahead and do it on the other and you should be all right.

Now, the third problem that I want to talk about on these vehicles involves the throttle body. This is gonna be part of your air intake system, and it's located right down along the front side of your engine right down there. Essentially, what happens with these is you have the air inlet hose that comes down to right there, and then it's gonna get pulled through this little flap right there. As you accelerate, it's supposed to electronically open up and then, of course, electronically close as soon as you release the gas pedal. If for some reason it's gunked up like this one is right here, it's gonna, of course, cause an issue.

Some things that you might happen to notice if you do have an issue with your throttle body, it might be the fact that you have an erratic idol. It might seem like it jumps around a little bit. You might also notice laggy throttle response or even poor fuel economy. Of course, that's gonna be an issue. Nobody wants poor fuel economy. With that said, there are a couple of things that you can do about this, but before you want to go ahead and do what I'm about to tell you, you want to try to figure out what the actual issue is that's causing this.

Essentially, if you were to have a leak someplace on one of your hose clamps right here, that leads from your air filter, there's gonna be dirty and probably unmetered air getting pulled into your air intake system. That's gonna cause an issue and, of course, you're gonna get all this debris that you can see right there. Other than that, maybe you don't keep up with replacing your air filter like you should. Underneath this right here is where the air filter is, and if it's dirty, there's a possibility dirty air could be getting pulled through and it's accumulating on your throttle body just like this.

All right. So now let's get down to the fixes of this. If you were to look at it, you can tell that it's a pretty big mess. And if you look right here, you can see it has an electronic connector right there. If you see an electronic connector, then obviously you don't want to be pushing on this because that means that this is motorized on the inside. And if you move that, you could decalibrate this and it's gonna be a major issue. You're gonna notice some serious runability issues.

With that said, if you get yourself some throttle body cleaner and a nice bucket and a little brush, you could even use an old toothbrush if you wanted to, you can generally spray this down, let it soak, and then give it a nice little scrub. Something that I like to mention though is you definitely want to take it off of the vehicle to do this because if you were to turn it around, well, now you can see where the real problem lies. This is gonna be a major issue, and if you're noticing throttle lag or poor throttle response, more than likely it's due to something that looks a lot like this. And that's because, well, it's kind of binding things up and the motor that's inside there is just having a hard time doing its job.

Sticking under the hood, we're gonna go for problem number four now. Here we go. We've got ignition coils. This is gonna be fairly common on these particular vehicles. They tend to fail. Overall, what you might happen to notice if they fail would be symptoms such as maybe you have a check engine light on the dash. That check engine light, if you had a little scanner, would probably come up with something saying P0300, P0301, P0304 theoretically. If you had P0300, that just kind of stands for a random cylinder misfire, which could technically mean that you have multiple issues with possibly your coils. But if you have P0301 or P0304, essentially 301 is for cylinder 1, 304 is for cylinder 4. With that said, it kind of leads you in the direction of which way you need to go when diagnosing.

Now, your ignition coils are gonna be located right up along the top of your engine here. You've got one, two, three, four going right across. Now, these coils go right down into here, which is where your spark plugs are gonna be. If you notice that you have a check engine light on that says P0301, you'd want to go to cylinder 1, like I said, and so on throughout the cylinders. A good thing to do would be, of course, to take out the coil itself and inspect it. See if you see any funny colors, see if you see any damage anywhere. Anything that looks like it's out of the ordinary, you're gonna want to check. You also want to make sure you check that wiring. Same thing, check for funny colors, check to see if it looks like it's damaged in any way, maybe a mouse chewed on it or something.

Other than that, what you could try to do would be to take one of the coils and swap it with another good known cylinder. So if you have just one code, P0301, go ahead and switch it with maybe this one right here. Clear the codes, go ahead, and run it. If the code comes back saying you still got P0301, well, then you need to stay here and I would continue on by checking the spark plugs and/or switching the spark plugs as well. But if the misfire tended to move and it may be moved to the cylinder that you switched the coil with, well, then you know that you need a coil and really, it only makes sense to replace them all at one time.

Now, for the fifth problem on this particular vehicle, we're gonna talk about the EVAP system integrated motor. To do that, we need to get underneath the driver's side rear of the vehicle right here to the EVAP canister. If you were to look right here, you're gonna see a nice little white valve. Essentially, what happens with these, and I'll kind of just pull it apart so you can see, this right here is a breather hose and it needs to have an air filter up along the top, and it's gonna be tucked inside the wheel well so it's safe from any debris. It's not safe from all debris though, and it will actually get clogged up with dirt and everything else that gets kind of packed up in there.

So you want to make sure that this is free and clear and nothing comes out of it such as moisture, water, or even dirt or anything. You could try to apply a little bit of positive pressure through there with maybe an air hose of some sort and just try to blow it out. Or of course, remove this right here and check the filter itself physically. With that said, let's continue on to looking at this. If you were to grab onto it, there's a little tab. I'm gonna pull on it and twist this and pull it off. And if you look in between the valve itself and the charcoal canister, you're gonna see this little gasket. The gasket needs to be in good working condition, you need to make sure it's not dry rotted, and it's definitely not cracked in any way. If you do, you're probably gonna see that you have an EVAP leak someplace.

Other than that, the valve itself is actually weighted on the inside so the valves basically work by gravity. If you were to have this in the wrong position such as sideways, or even you relocated the charcoal canister so it's in a different direction or in a different position, you could potentially cause an issue where this valve wouldn't work properly. So you need to make sure that everything's sitting the way that it should. You need to make sure that the gaskets on there properly, and of course, you want to make sure you check the wiring right here, see if I can get this off. Check to see if you've got any moisture inside there, like what I do, and also check to see if there's any funny colors. If you see any funny colors in the connectors, you know that there's an issue. Overall, replacing this valve right here is gonna be the most common fix, and when you do it, you want to make sure that you go ahead and replace this as well.

Okay, friends, so that's pretty much what I've got for top problems on this particular vehicle. Every vehicle has its problems, otherwise, I might not even have a job. With that said, I hope you liked the video. If you did, smash on the like button for me, it would mean the world. While you're at it, why don't you go ahead and comment, because I always love to hear from you? Subscribe and ring the bell, that way tat you can be kept up with all of our latest content. Thanks.