How do you replace crankshaft sensor on Chrysler sebring 2006?

Answer 1

This is a difficult job. If a professional will do it for a reasonable price, let them. If you are determined to do it yourself, read on.

Parts List:

1. the replacement Crankshaft Position Sensor (about $20). NB: This is different from a Camshaft Position Sensor (see the detailed narrative below).

Tools Needed:

1. jack and pair of jack stands

2. portable work light

3. spray lubricant to loosen frozen bolts

4. 15mm box-end wrench

5. 15mm socket and ratchet wrench

6. 8mm box-end wrench and/or 8mm socket and small ratchet wrench

7. large flathead screwdriver to pry off the old electrical plug

8. medium pipe wrench or large box-end wrench for additional leverage to 15mm box-end wrench as needed

Steps:

1. Assure transmission is in park position. Firmly set the parking brake.

2. Jack up each side of the front end until tire is two inches off the pavement, and set jack stands securely.

3. Open and prop hood, and disconnect from metal frame the negative (black) wire leading to battery. This is on the right (driver's side) as you face the car.

4. Visualize the starter down in the space between the air filter housing on the right and the individual air ducting system to the cylinders of the transverse engine just to the left. For better light and access, remove the small air scoop secured by one plastic rivet to the front, and unsnap its square distal end from the air filter housing, and set aside. Disconnect the rubber hose beneath that and tuck away. Now you can reach under the starter, and above the metal brace just below that connects to a round, laterally-mounted, vibration-absorbing rubber bushing clearly visible in front and below. There you can feel the plastic electrical connection to the sensor unit which is inserted into the engine block behind it. You won't be able to see it without a lighted mirror on a stick or a small flexible video probe.

5. If from this vantage point you can get the plastic plug undone, find the 8mm bolt, get a socket on it and remove it, and get the new unit inserted, bolted in, and plugged in, congratulations, you're done. (In that case you didn't even need to jack up the car.) I couldn't. If you can't either, proceed to step 6.

6. Placing all of your tools and materials within easy reach, get on your back under the front center of the car and clip your work light a little toward the passenger side, illuminating the shock brace that mounts onto the engine crank case on the front, opposite the oil plug which is to the rear of the oil pan. You are going to remove that alloy brace to gain access to the sensor.

7. The alloy brace is secured by five bolts, all 15mm hex head, three long, zinc-colored, and two short black. First remove the transverse bolt that goes through the rubber bushing that is housed within a metal cylinder that is part of another brace connected to the front of the car. Then remove the two short black bolts that go through the engine side flange of the brace back into the block. This order is necessary for better access to the remaining two bolts. Then remove the last two bolts. All of these bolts may be difficult to loosen. Use rust-and-grime-dissolving lubricant, and if necessary, another wrench on the end of your 15mm box end for additional leverage. Clearances here may be too limited for ratchet wrench initially on some of the bolts, especially the last two. When the last of the five bolts is out, the brace comes free. Remove it downward and set aside.

8. Adjust light to show the electrical plug which obscures the sensor itself and the 8mm hex head bolt that holds it in. Use flathead screwdriver and try to free the plug if possible without breaking the built-in plastic retaining spring clips. On my 2006 Sebring, all such plastic plugs have become brittle, and the built-in plastic spring clips break off in the effort to dislodge the plug. It doesn't really matter, because this plug is in a very protected place when all is reassembled, and the plug will stay engaged. You can put electrical tape on it if you want. It may be necessary to do great violence to the plug to get it dislodged. With mine, the plug portion of the old sensor broke off the sensor probe before I could get it unplugged, so the old part came off in two pieces. Once the plug is off, you can see the 8mm hex head bolt going through the retaining loop on the sensor into the engine block.

9. If you have the 8mm box-end wrench or small socket wrench with 8mm socket recommended (Tools No. 6), you can probably skip this step. I didn't. I only had a ratchet screwdriver-style socket with an 8mm socket, and the length of it was such that I did not have enough clearance to use it without first removing the other alloy brace that contains the rubber bushing. It is secured to the front of the car by three more 15mm hex head bolts that go up through the bottom. My ratchet driver had no leverage, so I had to use a spring wrench to turn it hard enough to loosen the 8mm bolt. This step was done standing in front of the car and working from above.

10. Remove the 8mm bolt, and remove the old sensor. Insert the new sensor into the shaft into the engine block, and replace the 8mm bolt through the retaining loop on the sensor, and secure. Instructions seen elsewhere for another year vehicle said to connect the electrical plug before bolting on the sensor, but on the 2006 this did not appear possible as the plug is right in front of the bolt. Plug the wire connection into the plug on the newly-mounted sensor.

11. Reconnect the negative cable and test-start the car (leaving it in park and parking brake on). Turn off the car. This would be a good time to replace the small air scoop.

12. Go back under the car and replace the alloy brace with the five bolts (or both of them, if you had to remove both). NB: the long zinc-colored bolts are all the same length, but two of the long bolts are thick, and one is thinner. The thinner bolt is the one that goes through the rubber bushing, and the other two are the ones that secure the brace to the engine block. Again because of clearances, you probably want to replace the two short black bolts last.

13. Remove the jack stands before driving.

Narrative:

At about 85,000 miles my 2006 Chrysler Sebring convertible with 2.4L four-cylinder DOHC EFI engine experienced a hiccup that caused the engine light to come on and stay on. It didn't want to torque much more than 2,000 RPM. In that condition the car will not climb a 6% grade at highway speed.

These symptoms were similar to failure of the Camshaft Position Sensor which I had already replaced on this car at about 70,000 miles. That part cost about $35 at Advance Auto, who identified the problem with their onboard diagnostic device for free. That sensor can be changed while standing up in your Sunday clothes, as it's right on the driver's side end on the transverse engine secured by one bolt and a plug-in wire set. It was only necessary to move one hose out of the way temporarily, and use a small metric socket (I forget the exact size on that one) on a ratchet driver. The same thing happened several months later. The store saw in their computer system that I had bought the same part less than a year ago, so they gave me another one for free.

When I got the same symptom again at 85,000 miles, I took the car straight to the store for the free onboard diagnostic. This time it flagged the Crankshaft Position Sensor. They had it in stock for about $20. Though the local Advance Auto staff is very helpful, they did not know where the Crankshaft Position Sensor was located, guessing that it was probably on the back of the engine. At home I couldn't find it there, and so went back to buy a repair manual for the 2006 Sebring. They didn't have one after 2005, after which everything changed. They looked into their system and could not find a print manual available. The manager knew that the Crankshaft Position Sensor had to be located where it could read the position of internal wheel calibrated for the purpose, so he guessed it was under the left (passenger) side of the engine in the vicinity of the engine pulley and serpentine belt. He got down on the ground, reached under the car, and thought he felt it in that area.

At home again, I couldn't find it there. The Sebring is a low car, so I raised the car onto a jack stand on one side and looked all around the back of the engine, the front as far as I could see, left and right, and could not find anything that looked like the part I bought, in a place where it could serve its function. I looked up all the Q&A on this I could find online and watched several YouTube videos on changing the Crankshaft Position Sensor on other vehicles, but nothing was on point. Finally I looked up repair manuals online and saw that Chilton sells an online repair manual that includes this car for about $15 a month or about $25 a year. I bought a year's subscription, and looked up the sensor's location. It said: "2.4L Engine. The 4-cylinder crankshaft sensor is located on the front of the engine below the starter." I found that if I used the link at the bottom that said "Click to Enlarge," it opened another window with another copy of the diagram that was actually smaller. It was hard for me to make sense of the diagram, though it was clearly a technical engineering line diagram with good detail. Having done the job, I see now that the vantage point of the diagram is not possible unless the engine were out of the car.

On Chilton DIY online (subscription), I used the search feature to learn the location of the Crankshaft Position Sensor. Again, the diagram, though detailed, didn't tell me much about where on the car the thing was. The text was more helpful, once I located the starter: "The 4-cylinder crankshaft sensor is located on the front of the engine below the starter." They don't tell you that there is a brace right under it, you can't see it from any angle, and you can't work on it without removing other parts.

In fact, Chilton DIY has no repair or maintenance instructions for this sensor at all.

Using the navigation tree on the left of the screen, going to "Engine Performance and Emission Controls," there were subcategories for "Component Locations" (I had already found the location using the search feature), "Components and Systems," and under that one, for "Camshaft Position Sensor" (not this sensor), there were further subcategories for "Operation," "Removal and Installation," and "Testing." Under "Removal and Installation" were further subcategories for "2.4L Engine" and "2.7L Engine." Under each of these are step-by-step instructions for removing and replacing the Camshaft Position Sensor.

Under "Crankshaft Position Sensor," however, there appear only two of the three subcategories seen under "Camshaft Position Sensor," namely, "Operation" and "Testing," but no "Removal and Installation." For the Crankshaft Position Sensor, Chilton DIY provides diagrams and even animated videos on what the Crankshaft Position Sensor does and how it works, and how to test it, but not one word on how to replace it when it goes bad. Either they assume that it will never go bad (in which case the "Testing" category, and indeed the after-market part, would not be necessary), or they consider replacing the Crankshaft Position Sensor a task not to be done by oneself.

Since I was even more stubborn and determined than I was ignorant, I left these implications unheeded, and proceeded to get 'er done. If you are similarly inclined, I hope these instructions save you the trial-and-error, and the two days out of my Labor Day Weekend that I spend doing this.

I did see on an Ask the Chrysler Mechanic site some very simplistic instructions on replacing both the Camshaft Position Sensor and the Crankshaft Position Sensor in answer to someone who asked about both. The mechanic who answered said did not talk about jacking up the car and removing the vibration-absorbing brace for access. Instead, he said "remove the air breather assembly." Then he said remove the bolt and replace the sensor, like it was nothing. I don't think I'd have wanted to remove all of the air breather assembly, which has many connections, and I'm not sure that even if you did, you could get satisfactory access to the Crankshaft Position Sensor on the 2.4L engine that way. When I clicked on the engineering diagram he supplied, it was just as bewildering as the one on Chilton DIY, and I noticed that it was labeled as being only for the 2.7L engine. So I don't know whether his method would work for the 2.4L engine, and having done already what I did, I am highly invested in doubting the efficacy of his method for my car.