Steering wheel controls stop working

[Dave01]

Good luck with your truck. I would urge replacing the SCCM module, as that's given me the longest duration fo relieve both in terms of months (4+ months) and miles (7,000) from the issue.

The problem with this particular problem is multiple people have had multiple fixes that seem to work, but no universal fix. So in my case I had a switch replaced (Osse I feel your pain with that one) that did nothing, a clock spring replaced that did nothing, then a 2nd clock spring that fixed it. Do I think the clock spring was the problem? I'm guessing no, that instead it was some physical action related to spring replacement or some reset related to it that fixed it. But I'm now 15 months since the fix and have had no problems since, so whatever it was seemed to work. So replacing the SCCM MIGHT do something positive, or might do nothing, like pretty much every other fix for this annoying, nagging issue that so many of us have had to deal with.

 

[Garvanzo]

I have had this issue with my 5th gen 1500 Bighorn 3 times. Thankfully, each time, a hard reset of the radio got it working again. It's hard to understand why these trucks are so glitchy. I had 3 Challengers and 2 Durangos that all used similar programming and hardware that did not have any of these issues. Every morning when I start the truck for the first time, the radio goes through a on-off-on-off-on thing. Sometimes it takes 2 or 3 minutes for it to get to normal.

 

[brv10]

They are having clockspring issues

 

[Osse]

Update: Different dealer in the area had a left side steering wheel switch in stock - "one of 31 dealers" in the country with that item, so I got lucky. That dealer performed the repair. I wasn't in the shop, of course, but the tech brought stuff out for a show&tell. Here's the nub of what he told me:

1. A modified diagnostic procedure is fairly new from the manufacturer - as in late last year. The switches are back-ordered due to unexpected demand but the manufacturer is beginning to catch up.
2. Apparently the switch does have programming circuits; other dealers were mistaken. That's what "breaks", not mechanical parts. A power-out/reset will often restore the switch circuit programming, but it's almost always in failure mode and will "break" again due to repeat circumstances that creates the initial fault.
3. The SCCM throws codes that are not accessible through OBD2, and the tech told me that those codes only happen in specific conditions. That portion of the diagnostic is both broad (applies to multiple systems) and robust and rarely fails to indicate problems accurately. In my case there were no SCCM related codes, so the conclusion was that the problem lay "above" the SCCM - in other words, in the switch or related wiring.
4. Clockspring problems occur. However, when they do, they do not affect the left-side switch alone; they almost always affect other controls as well.

Again, this is what I was told, and time will tell.

 

[Dave01]

Update: Different dealer in the area had a left side steering wheel switch in stock - "one of 31 dealers" in the country with that item, so I got lucky. That dealer performed the repair. I wasn't in the shop, of course, but the tech brought stuff out for a show&tell. Here's the nub of what he told me:

1. A modified diagnostic procedure is fairly new from the manufacturer - as in late last year. The switches are back-ordered due to unexpected demand but the manufacturer is beginning to catch up.
2. Apparently the switch does have programming circuits; other dealers were mistaken. That's what "breaks", not mechanical parts. A power-out/reset will often restore the switch circuit programming, but it's almost always in failure mode and will "break" again due to repeat circumstances that creates the initial fault.
3. The SCCM throws codes that are not accessible through OBD2, and the tech told me that those codes only happen in specific conditions. That portion of the diagnostic is both broad (applies to multiple systems) and robust and rarely fails to indicate problems accurately. In my case there were no SCCM related codes, so the conclusion was that the problem lay "above" the SCCM - in other words, in the switch or related wiring.
4. Clockspring problems occur. However, when they do, they do not affect the left-side switch alone; they almost always affect other controls as well.

Again, this is what I was told, and time will tell.

Thanks for the writeup, will be pretty interesting to see if this solves more instances of this problem.

When you say "left side steering wheel switch" do you mean the whole switch cluster, or a specific switch?