With A/C on, compressor and radiator fan cycle on/off as expected. Well and good. But at the instant they cycle on, the front wiper sometimes jumps an inch or so, or sweeps fully once. In addition, the headlights and the lights in the bumper flash on ever so briefly (noticed it only at night after turning off the lights but before shutting off the ignition).

Since the lights and wiper motor are apparently controlled by the front ecu (I read another post saying so, but I don't know whether the Outlander has one), I would expect to look in this area. But how/what to check?

A further clarification: I just bought this vehicle a week or so ago, and I found an after-market vehicle alarm siren mounted inside the engine well. Its 2 wires were cut and hanging. Didn't find an alarm module anywhere, but I wonder if somehow this is related since I heard that wipers and lights are controlled by some alarm systems.

Also noted that the "Drive" LED indicator and the "Gear" display on the instrument panel are dead, while the "Park", "Reverse" and "Neutral" LEDS work.

 

Here's the post I left on another site
(http://www.2carpros.com/questions/20...trical-problem)
about my finally fixing this problem:

Glad to get your reply. It confirms what I found.

I suspected the culprit might be the fan module after reading others' experience, so I dis-assembled it. It had no identifying marks on it, but I found that the circuit board components had date codes from 2007, so I knew it wasn't original equipment.

I discovered that the large 220 uF 35 volt capacitor (C3) in the middle of the board was slightly bloated on the top, indicating it was likely failing. Using an ESR meter, I found it had very high equivalent series resistance (16 ohms), and replaced it. But I installed a larger 470 uF 35 volt cap instead, believing that in a power supply filter more capacitance is usually better.

Before the repair, the wiper would jump slightly nearly every time I started the car. Since putting the repaired module back in service two days ago, I haven't had one instance of wiper or washer action.

Now, I don't know whether going to a larger value capacitor had any positive effect. It may be that the 220 uF capacitor works just fine as long as it's good.

I took a few photos after repairing the board, while re-assembling the module.

Here's one. It shows the new (light blue) cap installed and the bad one next to the board.

FYI. When re-assembling the module, don't over-tighten the screws on the heat-sinks of the two power transistors. You might squash the soft insulators underneath them, and short out the circuit.

 

As for the last item in my original post, I found that inside the center console, under the shifter, three small wires had broken loose from a microswitch on the shifter.

The pictures show the switch and wires from the passenger side of the console.

After resoldering, I used a wire tie to anchor the wire harness to the switch so that the constant motion of the shifter wouldn't break off the wires again.

I hope these two replies help.

 

It's been 15 months now and I've had no more occurrences of the electrical problem of my first post. Nor with the gear shift display.