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Fixed my ambient air temperature sensor.

14K views 15 replies 7 participants last post by  raz-0 
#1 ·
Guys and gals, fellow renegades! If you have a faulty ambient air temperature reading (and as a result, a check engine light), you will find that requesting a repair will likely by upwards of $500 at the dealership. OR you can buy the part you need (which is called a thermistor) for about $5.00 or less and do the repair in under an hour. You will need a long thin screwdriver, a wire cutter, a soldering iron (and knowledge of how to solder), and some liquid electrical tape or hot glue. You also need to know how, which is pretty simple if you watch this video:



I get that you might not be comfortable following a link, so find the video on YouTube. The content creator is Relic Adventures (no, it’s not me), the title of the video is “Jeep Renegade Ambient Temp Fix For Under $10”.
It is not my video, but I did this repair on my 2015 Renny, and it was EASY! I had to share.
If you want to make this repair, here is the specs on the thermistor you will need:

NTC Thermistor 10k Ohm 10% Radial Lead 2.5mm Lead.

There is a link on the video to this thermistor on Amazon, but it was out of stock when I tried to order it. I found mine on eBay.
Hope this helps!
JeepJev
 
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#3 ·
Agreed, excellent video.

But with that being said, that dude is horrible at time management.
"The sun is setting in about 20 minutes. Let's go outside NOW and record a repair video.". He could've waited like, 12 hours and did it at sunrise..... lol

My only concern is the 10k thermistor. I work with 10k's in my line of work; large commercial building automation. There are several types, Type I, II,III, etc. All will read, but use the wrong Type, you get inaccurate readings. Granted, for a vehicle, no big deal, but the anal retentive part of me would want the right Type, simply because of my line of work.... ;)
 
#4 ·
Agreed, excellent video.

But with that being said, that dude is horrible at time management.
"The sun is setting in about 20 minutes. Let's go outside NOW and record a repair video.". He could've waited like, 12 hours and did it at sunrise..... lol

My only concern is the 10k thermistor. I work with 10k's in my line of work; large commercial building automation. There are several types, Type I, II,III, etc. All will read, but use the wrong Type, you get inaccurate readings. Granted, for a vehicle, no big deal, but the anal retentive part of me would want the right Type, simply because of my line of work.... ;)
Hey Mud Pie, thanks for the info. Me not knowing squat doodly, I just went with the one he showed. Temp on the dash now matches what my phone’s weather app says. Honestly, I have no idea what ANY of those numbers mean, but what the hey, just happy I fixed it!
 
#15 ·
Well I got done over lunch. What I can say is that the design of the OEM part is stupid. The channels in the plastic shell that protrudes from the mirror housing are not wide enough to accommodate insulated wire of the gauge they use for the connection. So even on the OEM part, there's a seam where the resin and the wire insulation meets. The legs of the thermistor appear to be corroding over time. At least after removing the resin it's potted in, the thermistor legs were gray and chalky. Corrosion can alter impedance, and I suspect this is what is happening.

I ordered the 02-N103-2 NTC 5 pack from amazon.

Given the fit of the stock part in the plastic shell, I was concerned about an air gap and was going to cram in some thermal interface material, but decided to pass for fear that it would interfere with weatherproofing it. The thermistor makes physical contact with the shell walls, and that appears to be sufficient. I basically soldered on some leads to the thermistor, inserted it in as deeply as I could, and used some silicone RTV to entomb it in the shell and basically made a strain relief out of goop extending up the wires to keep moisture away from unprotested metal. Then I spliced it in. Everything soldered and using weatherproof heat shrink to seal connection. Everything seemed to work.

Compared to the OEM part, it does seem to change values faster, and reads a pretty consistent 4-5F low compared to the external nubbin. So it shouldn't be overly optimistic about things not being potentially frozen if any onboard logic tries to guess based on ambient temp.

But you can source the actual part from ebay form the UK for about $40 after shipping. OR pick up a mirror housing for ~$180. I spent $1 on the resistor and $12 on some contact cleaner.
 
#16 ·
OK, for some reason, the fix as I did it bothers me. I want better temp sensing. To that end, I found the OEM of the sensor. Here is their general spec.

View attachment 2396353793

The thermistor from this thread is kind of sloppy for the actual job. Hence it's poor performance in terms of temp and the ECU being paranoid about the values. The amazon link is -40-125c vs -40-100c, and is 10kohm +/- 10% vs +/- 3%.

link to specs Air temperature sensor
 
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