It was comforting to read several reviews here from people who had experienced the same mysterious problem I had. My 1999 Durango engine stalled in a fast food check out line July 21, 2007 and I had to push it to get out of the way of the people behind me. (You don't want to block the drive-through line at Jack-in-the-Box...you'll end up with a small riot on your hands.
All the guage needles were flat-lined and I was getting the "No Bus" message in the digital odometer read out. My wife suggested we were out of gas but I had just filled the tank the previous day. I pushed the vehicle into the parking lot, popped the hood, looked for anything obviously loose, broken or missing but nothing apparent. I called my Dodge dealership. They immiediately said I need a new crank sensor. I called AAA and requested a tow, they said it would be about an hour wait. About 30 minutes into my wait for the tow truck to arrive, I tried starting the vehicle and to my surprise it started!. I drove it home, did a search on the computer and came across this site with several people describing my problem exactly. I drove it to the dealership the next day, fearing it would die on me en route but luckily, I made it ok. I requested they just replace the PCM (main computer) and skip the sensor replacement becaue the sensor failures were probably just a symptom of the greater problem.
Of course, I was just 9 months out of warranty so I paid the full amount; about $800.00 for the replacement.
This is one of those unsolvable mysteries isn't it? Electrical or computer problems usually are difficult to trace to root cause. It's been a week without failure but that isn't really long enough to call it a success. I will try to remember to come back to this site a year from now and report my status.
I do intend to keep this vehicle for a few more years. It's a pretty solid feeling SUV when running, but some unusual mechanical odds and ends have failed and I feel they are items that should not have failed. This is a family vehicle (two adults and a dog) and does not see hard duty. It has been costly to repair but less costlty overall than buying a new vehicle.
Besides, it's my wife's SUV, she loves it, so, we keep it.
Should a PCM fail after 8 years? Yeah, it's probably ok after that amount of time. My home PC hard drive crashed after 4 years, probably not much different. The scary aspect here is; if it happened at traffic speed it could be very dangerous. Too bad Dodge couldn't do some sort of preventative maintenance / replacement, save us the heart stopping experiences.
