On my 01 the reverse lights were not working. I bought it used. I checked the fuse box on the left side of dash and the fuse for the backup lights was not there. I put one in and now my backup lights work also now I have daytime running lights. They have to be hooked together somehow.

 

Bump to my question in post #15.

 

No....they should be retained.

 

Well the truck has been at the dealership for 2 days in a row and they still have not figured out what causes the reverse lights to not work. They have narrowed it down to the connection between the switch on the tranny and the TIPM. The switch on the tranny is fine and they are able to get the reverse lights to come by having the TIPM turn them on. So now I am taking it back to them for a third day and that is where they are going to start. The tech told me that I might need a new TIPM if the wiring from the switch to the TIPM is good. Hopefully I will find out tomarrow.

 

Well after 5 full days at the dealership they finally called Crysler at the same time going over what they find and they came to the conclusion that my TIPM is bad. So Friday they will install a new TIPM to see if that fixes the problem. I don't know why they just did not do this in the first place.

 

Saga continues...... New TIPM did not fix the problem so they put the old one back in. Chrysler then told them to re-configure the TIPM manually. This has not worked. Now at the dealership 10 days. The latest (and I think we are on the right track) is that according to StarScan the TIPM is not recognizing that the tranny is a manual and it thinks that it is a auto so it won't turn on the reverse lights. StarScan told my tech that this has happened before to others but not enough to warrent a TSB. They sent a patch (file) to my tech and he is trying to load it in his StarScan tool but he does not have the proper USB cable and won't get it until tomarrow. After he downloads it he will upload it to my TIPM, and with a little luck this will hopefully fix the problem.

 

Wow! Keep us updated!

 

Yeh, horror story, I see the need to have lots of things controlled by a computer, but BACK-UP lites? What was wrong with just having the sw turn them on directly?

 

I had the same problem at a bar in Veracruz a few years back. Seems that the little gal that was serving my drinks and sort of sitting on my lap, had a jealous boyfriend that went out and reached up and whacked my trailer loom adapter at the junction of the main loom, and grounded out my back-up light circuit.

Created a real nightmare for the Dealer, they spent two weeks of troubleshooting under the warranty before they finally found the problem. They never did bill me, too embarrassed after all the calls to Chrysler for technical help.

No big deal to me, you do not even need headlights in Mexico! Just drive by Braille and if it bounces it must be smaller than you!

 

Well the saga ENDS They finally fixed the reverse lights. It was the TIPM thinking I had a auto tranny, so StarScan sent a computer file to download into the tech scanner to put into my TIPM and it worked. I lost track of how many times the truck was at the dealership (11 or 12). What a PITA this has been. I really can't blame the dealership too much as according to them they really don't get a whole lot of support from Chrysler and StarScan. It just so happen that my tech finally got a hold of someone over at StarScan that knew what they were doing and had seen this problem before. He told my tech that this has not happened that many time to warrent a TSB. I thinks regardless it should be a TSB.

 

Glad to hear they figured it out. I went on StarOnline and checked for similar cases and found 3! Tell your tech at the dealership that may be a good thing to check next time , even beofre calling the Star Technical Assistance line. The StarOnline option on the dealer connect website has cases like yours, and if they see it enough, that is what determines if it will become a TSB or not.