Expert: Roland Finston - 6/24/2011

Question
I have a 2001 chrysler town and country. and the only way it will start if i turn the steering wheel up and down, i had Auto Zone do a check and  because my check engine like came on and I got ps602 or ps604. don't know what that  means it something about a relay senors

Answer
Hi Carla,
I am not clear what you mean by "only way it will start". Do you mean that the starter motor will usually not respond to initiate cranking-over the engine, or do you mean that the starter motor always responds, cranks the engine, but the engine will not catch and idle...unless you move steering wheel up and down? The first I would call NO STARTER and second I would call NO START.
If the issue is the NO STARTER then there is one item to look for as a possible cause that would be consistent with the need to move the steering column up and down:
There is yellow wire that comes out of the flexible area of the steering column under the dash and goes to a connection that is located on what would be the place where you have a clutch pedal (if you had a manual transmission vehicle). The pedal would hang from a mounting bracket, just like the brake pedal does only in your vehicle the clutch pedal isn't there but its bracket is. On or very near that bracket you should see that yellow wire connected to a plug which has a second yellow wire coming out of it. The plug may have come loose from a small device, or be loosely fitting to the socket of that device, or one of the two yellow wires may be damaged are broken inside the insulation. The yellow wire caries 12 volts from the "start position of the ignition switch that is needed to operate the starter motor and so if that wire/plug/device is in any way damaged/disconnected then the starter won't operate reliably. Moving the steering column up or down might well jar the connection to work temporarily. So look for that wire and check it out to see if it shows 12V when you try the start position of the ignition switch. If might just be loosely connected from having been kicked sometime in the past.
On the fault codes: were they P0602 and P0604 or could they be 1602 and 1604 or something else? If you aren't sure then get another readout as those that you told me are not related to relays but rather to computers (at least the 0604 and the 1602 and 1604 are) and there is nothing for 0602 that I could find. I see nothing about 'sensors' in the 602/604's.
Let me know and I am sure we can figure this out when things are clarified.

Roland

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