I last spoke with TJ about this earlier in the week. I got downtown to look at the Jeep and it started / ran fine. New and more defined symptoms are: Doors unlocked with remote. Starter just clicked. Door locks wouldn't work with remote. Locked with manual lock, unlocked. Tried starter, turned over slow, started, ran rough, wouldn't idle, gave it gas, ran fine. Battery 12 + volts. Any ideas or help on this one would be most appreciated.

 

By the way. The Jeep has been running fine all week. This just happened again this morning.

 

Anyone experienced this problem and just gave up then???? The Cherokee is still sitting downtown. I can't get to it until Monday so I'm hoping for suggestions to check. Grounds are all clean. Battery is up. Alternator is good.

 

If its an aftermarket keyless entry system you could check to see if it has some sort of ignition killswitch. I had a similar issue on my 96' a few months back. To fix the problem I just cut the wire from the alarm module to the killswitch. After that I had no problems. It's worth a shot.

 

Not sure what the deal is have problems here & again w mine I pump throttle to get started & hold rpms up till it stays running,.. only way I get mine to go... Usually only couple times a month tho, I talked to a buddy if mine he said something wrong w oil pressure or something causing the CrankPS & or the Cam sensors .... Not sure how to test but both of mine are under warranty so I just keep replacing them lol, usually get my problems after wheeling probably not much of help but just maybe .......

 

I'll check that out and thank you for the suggestion. The keyless remote is factory but it does have an aftermarket alarm system on it.

 

I also heard it can be a short or bad cinnection, in one of the wiring hanrness, from the pcm/ecm,... Good luck

 

Thank you for the suggestions. I'll look in the FSM to see if there is a test procedure for those components.

 

My son is still driving my 1998 Cherokee and I'm driving his 2001. I have not experienced the problem he reported and we are discussing in this post. I has started and ran great everyday. I'm at a loss....

 

Finally took the Jeep to Auto Zone for a charging system/battery load test yesterday. The charging system checked good at 14.2 volts. With the engine off the battery voltage checked good at 13.2 V. The load test showed a defective battery. I replaced the battery with an 800@ Duralast Gold at the tune of $108.00 plus tax and core. After installation the phenomena appeared I had been waiting to see: Rough idle/low voltage. After about 30 seconds the voltage came up and the idle smoothed. I'm guessing the battery was marginally low so the ECM didn't know how to handle it initially. Subsequent multiple starts though out the remainder of the day proved normal. I'm hoping this resolves the issue permanently. Thanks for all the suggestions, information and support. TJ: Looks like your initial suggestion was the correct one!

 

Yes, that is likely the situation.

A marginal battery can create stalling and other driveability problems.

Where it confuses people is that they think that it can't be a battery problem because the battery has enough juice to start the vehicle. It is not uncommon at all for a battery to become "marginal"; they fail that way more often than a catastrophic failure

The only TRUE way of determining if a battery is up-to-snuff is through a "load test". The beauty of that is that any parts store has a load tester and will test your battery for free in the hopes of selling you a new battery if you need one.

Glad you have this one resolved!