Sorry, I don't have any electrical schematics for that vehicle.
If the symptoms really are a bunch of unrelated circuits at the rear of the vehicle, I'd suspect perhaps a wiring harness or a harness connection on the harness that runs to the back. Without schematics it's kind of hard to guess, but has anyone recently done any major under dash or underhood work that could have disturbed a harness connection? Do you see any corrosion on any harness connections anywhere?
Hey I have a 2000 4Runner Limited Ed and a phone charger got plugged into the cigarette lighter and not the power outlet and then the radio and clock popped and they never came back on so Im guessing I blew a fuse but I checked the power outlet fuse under the hood and its fine so now Im not really sure what to do next. Is there maybe a fuse behind the stereo or something...if somebody could point me in the right direction it would be much appreciated thanks.
Help: I have 2001 Nissan Sentra. The Automatic door lock buttons no longer work, nothing happens when you press them, I’ve lost the keyless entry but I would guess it will not work either. At the same time the rear defogger quit working as well.
Checked the fuses under the hood and inside and don’t see any blown ones, although don’t have the cover for the one’s inside so I don’t know what’s what but I checked them all.
I don’t know if this is related but I think this all happened after my battery was dead one morning and had to get a jump, after which I noticed the negative terminal was loose so I tightened it and haven’t had any problems with the battery since.
Any thoughts? Does anyone know where I can find the fuse-box diagram for my car? Do the automatic door locks or the defogger have a relay?
... in which I accidently left the ignition turned on with key in switch, side doors opened and lights on, overnight after unloading groceries. Needless to say the battery was dead in the morning. No problemo, me thinks as I do have a very RelIAbL=E Ford F150 sitting around. Being very careful of not letting the two vehicles intimately touch each other and following all of the other procedures and safety rules, I hooked-up jumper cables and allowed the Windstar to charge up a little and Whalla!!! the baby started right up. Only problem now and never was before is that the electronic information system in the dash seems to have lost its memory or mind or something. Oddball characters are shown instead of recognizable words, sometimes it looks like Chinese, sometimes like German, but mostly like Martian. So I am at a lost...No info in the handbook, no info through help forums thus far. I can't live with knowing which direction I am going in or what the temperature is like outside or how many miles to go before running out of gas. The system is quite handy in keeping track of engine oil life and it also checks exterior lighting and other good stuff when its working properly. Also my odometer and tripometer are set to Kilometers through this system and cannot be reset now.(Its a real pain always having to divide by 1.6 to get miles.) Everything else on vehicle is working as prescribed. I am afraid the dealership's service center will take me for a ride if I hand them the keys and my checkbook. I recently drove 2000 miles in this condition hoping the system would reset itself, nope it didn't. Please help.....
Well, I'm no expert on this, but now that the battery is charged you may have to disconnect it and reconnect it to reset that function. Then of course the parameters will have to be reset, but that should be in the owners manual. Maybe someone else here can chime in with some first hand advice.
-Carefully jump-starting your car caused a surge and fried some of the electronics. Probably the electronic dash display, maybe something else.
-Pulling the battery cable and re-hooking it up might reset everything.
-You still have a bad battery, if this is the battery that was deeply discharged. Although if it lasted thru 2,000 miles????? Anyway, several cars are sensitive to low voltage on the electronic dash display. I would test the battery.
2005 Toyota Tundra, 17k miles. Maybe simple, probably not...Plugged vibrating back mssager into cigarette lighter (massager dead now). Clock went out but came back on. Immediate rough idle, rough drive. Truck no longer starts with it's powerful "jet engine cool start", not driving as strong (feels strained), cigarette lighter only heats up to luke warm (no red coils), Nav intermittently goes bonkers, today the radio is not strong and powerful with sound like it was...sounds weak. Slow downhill automatic shifting barely present and is not strong anymore. All fuses ok. No codes present. Independent mechanic thinks voltage regulator got zapped and voltage regulator & alternator were damaged. Read in a forum that if correct voltage is not getting through from the alternator, it can "confuse" the ECU, which could explain alot of this. I am wondering if I replace the alternator & voltage regulator, could it correct these problems? Burning electrical smell intermittent (he says diodes inside alternator can cause burning smell). Don't know which wiring harness to trace if that's needed. Is it needed? Battery is good (truck is pristine). Don't want to replace ECU...afraid a short might be there and fry it. Don't know where to start! Downloaded all electrical schematics from ALLDATAdiy.com (may help others who need electrical diagrams). Seems like the more I drive it, the worse it is getting...could that be the charging system (voltage regulator) issue? Deserate (and broken hearted)...please help if possible!
Check ALL fuses. Some systems run power thru other fuses. Also, check as many fusible links as you can find. More than likely, one is burnt. The fusible links are distinguishable by the fact that they are fairly thick and the insulation on them is usually spongy. Most often, they are red, orange or brown. Most locations for them are off the Battery + terminal, at the starter and at the alternator.
have you checked out the charging system voltage and amp. output. if these are ok check for any marginal relay functions. sometimes a bad relay will try to power acc. thru microswitch and it can't capacitate the load. damage to body grounds can cause the same problem.
Hello, First time posting to this site. I have a 1993 chrysler concorde with automatic climate control that seams to do its own thing. Every time you turn the key on the climate control will stay off, then about 10 seconds later, the defroster will turn on, but the controls on the dash do not do anything, the display wont even light up. It used to be were you could hit the dash a couple of times then the climate control display will turn on, and the blower will turn off, then you can use it like normal. But about a weak ago hitting the dash does not even do it. I have checked all the fuses. I have a really bad wiring diagram for this car, and everything that is supposed to have has power. If any one has some info it would be greatly appreciated.
"It used to be were you could hit the dash a couple of times then the climate control display will turn on, and the blower will turn off, then you can use it like normal". Sounds like a bad electrical connection somewhere to me.
The tech hooked up the alternator to an alternator checking machine. At idle it read 13.74. When he "revved" it to 2000rpm and turned the lights, radio and wipers on, the reading dropped to 13.54. He said that was quite abnormal, that it should have gone up, not down. However, the machine read "passed"?? There was also a tach "swing" (bounced up and down)when he was driving it and hit the brakes. Does this point to a bad voltage regulator or alternator? Thanks.
Oh, great...and I paid $200 for that "diagnoses". I can imagine what the dealer is going to do to me. Should I tell them to start with the cigarette lighter and trace from there? I talked to one dealer who said they wouldn't know where to start. I don't have the knowledge to do this myself. I heard the cigarette lighter spreads out to alot of areas. If I tell them to check all relays and fusible links, as makes sense in one of the responses in this forum, is that "do able" within a reasonable time period, and without getting the OMG eye roll?
Have you tried just disconnecting the battery, letting everything reset, then re-connecting the battery? The 12V outlet doesn't "spread out" to a lot of areas so to speak, but if you plugged something in that caused a momentary short circuit or a big current draw you could have processor modules have have become confused. It would help to look at the wiring diagram to see what other systems are powered off of that same branch circuit. Be real careful with those 12V outlets, they're an old design and aren't up to the task today.
No, not yet. I wanted to see if they could find a problem in the circuitry the way it happened. But I will try that if they can't find anything. I have the wiring diagrams, and I don't quite understand them...ground circuits, power distribution...don't really know which to follow. Thought I would start with cigarette lighter, but don't understand the diagram. Sorry to be an idiot about those things, but I am taking it to a dealer next week (driving is getting worse and now it's affecting the radio...more things being affected). I hope they know what to do. I did see some type of "branch" that looked like it was close to the cigarette lighter...the electronic speed control, which has almost completely gone out. I am thinking if they pull the socket out from the cigarette lighter, maybe they can trace those wires? Does that sound logical? If this truck ever gets fixed, I will never plug anything into it again, in this life or after (and yes, I am taking it with me)!
SOMEBODY PLEASE HELP! I have a 2000 Accord 2DR/EX-LV, 135,000mi. The problems started back in February when I went for a routine oil change at my local "QuickLube" place. On one the technicians noticed that the accessory wires coming off the alternator had started melting. In an attempt to help me out he offered to tape them up for me. However, when he did, he taped them together and in turn shorted out my entire system and left me stranded for the evening. I had the car towed to my family mechanic who got the car running again. However I continued to have problems. I brought the car to my local dealership where they repaired the accessory wires and recommended I replace the alternator. So with a new battery in place, the wires repaired and a new alternator, things seemed to be fine, until my first trip to work. All my indicator lights started randomly coming on. (SRS, ABS, battery, brake, doors ajar, etc...) They started coming on and then going off. Driving home that night I discovered that in addition, it was like the car was having little power surges. My headlights kept getting really bright then dim, bright then dim. It was like I was going down the highway flashing people. This went on for a couple weeks. (My family mechanic said unless it's happening all the time they wouldn't be able to see the problem when hooked up to diagnostic). So alas, I started to have battery problems. Two days I went to leave work and the car was completely dead. Then driving to work I lost all power, heard some clicks, smoke poured out of the stereo and again I was stranded. After a week and a half of replacing relays and inspecting the electrical harness the problem could not be pinpointed. I was told I needed a whole new main electrical harness.(for $2000+) With the car not able to even start I had it towed home where it sat for three months. Finally I had the cash to bring it to my dealer again. They determined that the IAC valve was bad. They replaced this and got the car running again....
So the car is running again with the IAC valve replaced. The horn relay, stereo and passenger door control switch have all been replaced as well. (These were all found to be bad) Another new battery was also put in. Yesterday I drove it to work again for the first time in months. STILL the same problem. Indicator lights randomly coming on and surges of power making the headlights super bright and then dim again. AND as if that weren't enough, the brake light indicator light is off, until I step on the brake. I don;t have a brake light out! When I shut the car off and restart it it goes away. As soon as I step on the brake it comes back again! I've also noticed a clicking sound coming from around the stick shift area every time I step on the brake. Please help!
Sorry to say but I would lean toward the harness being the problem as was already diagnosed. That alternator wiring is made to carry a lot of current and if a short circuit occured there it could have profound results somewhere in the harness due to wires overheating. There's just a chance that a BCM or some other control processor was damaged, but the only way to know for sure would to replace and test to see if the problems go away. Needless to say now, the guy at the oil change place isn't the one to do electrical repairs.....
I was told that "fusible links" are the fuses themselves. Is that right, or are there wires that lead to not readily seen fuses, that link via electrical wires? Also, when I take to a dealer, so they don't spend time and my money in the wrong directon, should I have them start with the cigarette lighter and trace the wires behind it? Any info before I take it in next week would help. Now the Nav system won't "auto dim" at night and it is giving me blinding headaches. Another new symptom...I appreciate all the feedback you all have given. I don't want to end up like poor CatStevens5. I would have driven it off a cliff by now.
Fusible links are wires themselves, that are designed to burn apart if the amperage exceeds their specified rating.
So if a 20 Amp fusible link gets a 30 load on it, it will burn through and break the circuit.
As for taking it to the dealer, tell them all the problems and let them sort it out. Make a list of the problems and what happened. Trying to tell them where they should look won't save you any money or time. They will go on the info you provide them and start testing.
But, check a couple things first. Under the hood, is a fuse panel. In that fuse panel are some 100A fuses. Should be 2 side by side. Check and see if they are blown. I suspect one of them are.
When the short circuit occurred, the wires or wire that was carrying the current would have heated up and melted the insulation on itself and other wires around it in the bundle, possibly. I can't say for sure if this is really the problem, but since all your problems happened after the attempted wiring repair and it's result then it points to some electrical problem.
My 1997 Civic's battery was dead last Thursday as if I had left something on. However ALL switches were OFF. Someone from a garage jumped it on.
A few hours later the temp ggauge shows it is very, EXTREMELY hot, even if I only drove it for only 5 minutes. I take the car to my regular mechanic who says the "jumping it may have damaged the thermostat." He changed radiator, thermostat.
I take the car on a long drive from New York City to Jersey, and about 100 miles the radio pops, then the odometer crackles, and both give a puff of smoke. The car dies with smoke coming from the battery and the under-the-hood fuse box. But NO fuse was tripped.
I take it to a garage, who say "the PCM is gone, you need a new one." When I go to pick up the car, they say it was the alternator which was overcharging, putting out almost 20 volts. They put a new one and a new battery but left the old PCM. I start the car, again, the battery is completely dead. They jump the car with cables, tell me it will reach home. I find the odometer and speedometer are not working, they refuse to repair it. Also the wipers do not work when I turn them to the first setting, but work on the higher speeds.
I get home, able to turn it on and off several times within about 30 minutes each with no problems. The next day, again the battery is completely dead, this time a new battery!
Questions: 1) Why would a battery be completely dead from ONE day to another, with ALL switches off, yet not discharge when turned off earlier? :sick:
2) Why would both the odometer and speedometer be dead in this case? Aren't these a mechanical linkage? :mad:
I have replaced the battery, the alternator and the starter in my 1995 Chev Suburban.
It will run fine for a while and then, out of nowhere, the volt meter will drop to about 10 and it is just a matter of time before it will not run.
The next day I may come out and start it up and the volts may be low but then all of the sudden they will jump up to normal - about 14 - and it will run fine for a while... This is the LT - "electrical everything" - doors, windows, seats, remote locks - .
Dealership can't even figure it out.
Other symptoms: rear passenger window works intermittently. rear electric locks work intermittently
Okay...I've just replaced the control unit, since I had a new one that I had already paid for, just to see if it helped at all. Now the car won't turn over. Is there a trick to getting the car to recognize this new control unit or does it need to be programmed? If so, how?
If it were mine, I would suspect either a bad battery, bad battery or ground wire battery cable, or corrosion on either the terminals of these wires.... or up inside the cover of the wire itself. Could be either the positive or ground cable.
Get yourself a voltmeter, and when you have this problem that is shows 10 volts on your inside meter, put the voltmeter on your battery. If the battery shows 10 volts as well, then you know the battery is bad. However, if the battery shows 14 volts and the inside gauge shows 10 volts, then you are dropping 4 volts in your cables/connectors.
If you are showing a 4 volt drop across the wiring, you can possibly do more analysis depending upon your electrical skills. So in this case you have 14 volts on the battery, but only 10 on the inside gauge. You are trying to find whether the 4 volts is lost across the positive cable, or across the negative cable. So if you meter from the +battery to the engine block and get 10 volts, then you know that the 4 volts is lost in your ground circuit from the engine block back to the battery. Put your meter from engine block to -battery, and you'll see the 4 volts. That would be the cable that has a problem either at the connections or inside the wire itself.
If you do +battery to engine block and it's 14v, with the inside meter 10v, then you would suspect the positive battery cable. Little harder to confirm this without getting zapped, but go down and the solenoid of the starter and meter across the positive cable from the battery to the starter solenoid. If you have a voltage, that's your problem cable. Take great care when working around the starter solenoid. Those cables are sized to deliver a lot of amperage, and also you don't want to apply 12v to the solenoid as it will engage and turn over the starter motor and engine.
This shouldn't be too hard to narrow down. If your dealer didn't find it, it's probably not easily spotted corrosion and could be up under the shield of the wire.
All of your electrical things in the vehicle not working......that's what you would expect if you didn't have enough voltage to properly drive them.
While it's true that 'fusible links' can be the fuses themselves, when something references a fusible link they are making reference to one of the main fuse links that typically are sized to carry 100 Amps or more. They are usually up near the battery and look more like a hunk of metal than a fuse.
Think of the breaker box in a house. You have the individual circuits each fused at 15 or 20 amps. Collectively in the box, all of them will be fused at a maximum say 200 amps, which is the size that the main wire feeding the breaker panel can handle. This is the main breaker. It's that main breaker in a car which is typically referred to as a fusible link.
Thanks for the analogy, makes sense. All of the fuses, inc. the larger 100amps were checked, twice...and none blown. Thus the dealer's reluctance to work with this problem. It's not textbook, so they are stumpped. I made a flowchart: plugged device into cigarette lighter. Vibrated badly, removed it. Device (vibratng back massager) now dead (shorted out?). Clock turned off, but came back on. Immediate rough idle & rough ride. Cigarette lighter barely warms up. Bought new element, but same issue. Electronic speed control weakened and barely works. Intermittent Navigation glitches. Radio sounds weak, like it needs power. Auto dimmer on Nav no longer works. Strange "tach swing" when hitting brakes (sometimes). So far, that is the chronology.
I had been out of town, and not able to follow this board closely. I just went back to re-read your symptoms. Can you please send me your electrical diagram to kiawah@carspace.com
I'll take a look and see if I can help figure this one out for you.
And a couple more questions...when you say the vibrating seat is fried....do you know that it doesn't work in some other vehicle, or you know that it just doesn't work in your same vehicle? (not sure I want you to go plug it somewhere else just yet, just trying to get clarity on the facts).
Also, does the vibrating seat indicate the normal current draw? or a wattage number? If not, can you give me the make/model?
Did the fuse for this lighter blow? and if so, was the correct rated fuse in the fuse box for this circuit? (ie, it was supposed to be a 15A, and it had a 20A in it)
Wild guesses (which is about all you can do long distance with electrical issues.)
-Don't push the cig lighter in again. If it is 'barely warming up', there is still a big problem on this circuit.
-Unfortunately, what probably happened is the massager drew more power than the cig lighter circuit is rated for. It probably had a short in it to do this. For some reason the fuse on the cig lighter did not blow before it started to do some serious damage. Of course, if the massager had a massive dead short, all the damage could have been done in an instant (speaking from experence here).
One thing the overload of power could have done is melt the insulation off the cig lighter wire, and melted into several other wires in the same wire 'bundle'. There could be various wires and circuits now cross connected with melted insulation inside a wiring bundle. Oh, joy! (See comment about prior experience!)
One approach might be to start tracing the cig wire backwards, cutting the bundle wrappings off all the way. This means getting under the dash, and possible even pulling the dash.
I'm not even going to give a wild guess about some computer module or a solid state dash display, etc that might have been overloaded and fried.
My experience was a 1964 auto. A car with a very, very simple wiring setup compared to a modern car. I shorted a wire to an amp guage. It melted insulation in a bundle back to the fuse box inside the car. And then on the other side of the fuse box where the circuit continued under the hood, it melted insulation across the width of the car in a bundle and down to the starter. And I has just rebuilt the bundle under the hood. This all was one big spark, connection was made probably one tenth of a second. And even 35 years ago, working under the dash of a car is not an easy job, laying jammed upside down in the floor of a car.
What did you say this was, a 93 Civic? It might be time to sell this thing to salvage rather than pay to attempt to fix it. Mechanics do not want to start on a search and find expedition of running down what is apparently multiple circuit failures caused by a large power short.
Without having electrical schematics to look at, the likely culprit are the moving pieces (switch buttons and CC lever), and you need to either meter them out to confirm good/bad, or replace it. You may also have a separate CC controller, or it could be part of the cars computer....I don't know your specific vehicle. Should also verify that your brake light switch isn't bad and is working correctly, as that is usually used as a trigger to turn OFF the CC.
Is your mechanic that you took it to the dealer (who should have the schematics and trouble shooting guides), or generic non manufacturer shop? The dealer should be able to find and fix this.
bolivar, it is a 2005 Toyota Tundra if I'm not mistaken.
it sounds to me like the wrong fuse was installed in the cigarette lighter / accessory circuit to begin with. if it was pulling numerous amps, that should have opened up. i don't think any manufacturer rely's on an in-line fuse (solely) for ACC ckt, but the schematics will show this. probably, they have both a fuseable link and fuse, and the fuse should have gone.
i don't have access to the schematics either but i would say it's possible the alternator or diode assembly on same was damaged, even possibly the battery.
does the alternator and battery check out fine? take to Autozone for free diagnosis.
perhaps there is a power-control module somewhere in the Toyota system. I suspect that second, and third, I imagine the ECU could have been affected.
then again, if it were pulling a good number of amps and the fuse and fusable link didn't go, and you had wire heating... maybe there is an intermittent short in the ACC wiring now to ground.
Your advice sounds scary, but unfortunatley, possibly correct. No, it's not a 93 Civic. It is a beautiful, pristine 2005 Toyota Tundra Crew Cab w/only 17k miles on it. I thought a good place to start was the cigarette lighter wiring. Things seem progressive. The Nav system's auto dim at night no longer works and the screen to the touch gets hot. I'm going to send the wiring diagram to someone else who replied. I think a dealership "troubleshooting" will be massively expensive, and unless they think "out of the box", they won't find it. I won't even drive this anymore. Thanks for telling me not to push the lighter in anymore.
Which electrical diagram would you like? At alldatadiy.com, I downloaded almost everything.
There seems to be a bundle of wires that include the automatic speed control (which barely works) that is near the cigarette lighter...I am kind of lost though.
No, I wouldn't plug that thing into anything else, I had the guy at a car repair shop plug it into a battery meter checking thing, turned the massager on high, and...nothing, no readings. He then hooked a claw like device around the wiring of the massager and nothing...it was completely dead. I would have to get the box, but it was made by Clairol wih a cigerrate lighter attachment as it's only source.
The fuse didn't blow, and it was the correct fuse in the slot (15amp). I was actualy going to take this to a Toyota dealer in Raleigh (5 hrs away), but I'm afraid to drive it and cause more damage. I would be very grateful for you to look at the diagrams you are requesting.
I'm looking for the electrical schematics, which is probably something like 100 page pdf file, and might be called something like EWD (Electrical Wiring Diagram). I want to follow the power from the battery (and alternator), thru any electrical buss, thru fuses, relays, and any electrical control modules. Figuring what's working and what is not working, can help to isolate where the problem might be. If in doubt, send it.
I'm actually in Raleigh, which dealership would you take it to (Leith, Andersen?). Are you at the Outer Banks or something?
I sent you an e-mail with the info you need to get all of the schematics. I talked to the service mgr at Anderson and he agreed that codes don't have to be present for there to be a problem (first one to admit that). Outer Banks, I wish! I am in a podunk town near WV. Maybe you understand the dilema...!
Everything I listed is what is not working now, to my knowlege, everything else is working, so far.
Unlike cars of old that had dedicated wires for each device, most cars today use a single or multiple buss with multiplexing. A single control line may control a number of devices - so be careful. The schematic should tell the tale.
I have an 81 Silverado that is kinda doing the same things. It died on me last night but was able to jump it to get me home. on the way anything I did that used elec. drove the voltmeter down, even appling the brakes,stereo,headlights,whipers,and A/C.What should I look for? :confuse:
You're going to need to trace back to find where you are loosing power. Sounds like you have good power at the front battery, so the next logical things to check are:
- your battery connections, make sure no corrosion on either of the two battery terminals, and no corrosion where the other end of the cables connect (engine block, and starter), and make sure they are tight connections - your main fuselink (usually up near the battery, and big hunk of metal), made to be the master fuse capable of 100Amps or so. Make sure there is no corrosion on those terminals (careful, it's connected directly to the battery). - I would then check your ignition switch, and ignition relay if there is one. This would be the main 'switched on' power buss that feeds many fused circuits in the vehicle.
OK,I'll give it a shot but I hope this is'nt too stupid of a question... what voltage am I looking for and where exactly do I put the test leads? Sorry for my ignorance, but that's how we learn right? Thanks for your time and knowledge.
Comments
If the symptoms really are a bunch of unrelated circuits at the rear of the vehicle, I'd suspect perhaps a wiring harness or a harness connection on the harness that runs to the back. Without schematics it's kind of hard to guess, but has anyone recently done any major under dash or underhood work that could have disturbed a harness connection? Do you see any corrosion on any harness connections anywhere?
Have you checked all the fuses?
Check all fuses marked ACC and DOME
I have 2001 Nissan Sentra. The Automatic door lock buttons no longer work, nothing happens when you press them, I’ve lost the keyless entry but I would guess it will not work either. At the same time the rear defogger quit working as well.
Checked the fuses under the hood and inside and don’t see any blown ones, although don’t have the cover for the one’s inside so I don’t know what’s what but I checked them all.
I don’t know if this is related but I think this all happened after my battery was dead one morning and had to get a jump, after which I noticed the negative terminal was loose so I tightened it and haven’t had any problems with the battery since.
Any thoughts?
Does anyone know where I can find the fuse-box diagram for my car?
Do the automatic door locks or the defogger have a relay?
-Carefully jump-starting your car caused a surge and fried some of the electronics. Probably the electronic dash display, maybe something else.
-Pulling the battery cable and re-hooking it up might reset everything.
-You still have a bad battery, if this is the battery that was deeply discharged. Although if it lasted thru 2,000 miles????? Anyway, several cars are sensitive to low voltage on the electronic dash display. I would test the battery.
Some systems run power thru other fuses.
Also, check as many fusible links as you can find. More than likely, one is burnt.
The fusible links are distinguishable by the fact that they are fairly thick and the insulation on them is usually spongy. Most often, they are red, orange or brown.
Most locations for them are off the Battery + terminal, at the starter and at the alternator.
Every time you turn the key on the climate control will stay off, then about 10 seconds later, the defroster will turn on, but the controls on the dash do not do anything, the display wont even light up.
It used to be were you could hit the dash a couple of times then the climate control display will turn on, and the blower will turn off, then you can use it like normal. But about a weak ago hitting the dash does not even do it. I have checked all the fuses. I have a really bad wiring diagram for this car, and everything that is supposed to have has power.
If any one has some info it would be greatly appreciated.
The 12V outlet doesn't "spread out" to a lot of areas so to speak, but if you plugged something in that caused a momentary short circuit or a big current draw you could have processor modules have have become confused. It would help to look at the wiring diagram to see what other systems are powered off of that same branch circuit. Be real careful with those 12V outlets, they're an old design and aren't up to the task today.
There's just a chance that a BCM or some other control processor was damaged, but the only way to know for sure would to replace and test to see if the problems go away.
Needless to say now, the guy at the oil change place isn't the one to do electrical repairs.....
So if a 20 Amp fusible link gets a 30 load on it, it will burn through and break the circuit.
As for taking it to the dealer, tell them all the problems and let them sort it out. Make a list of the problems and what happened. Trying to tell them where they should look won't save you any money or time. They will go on the info you provide them and start testing.
But, check a couple things first.
Under the hood, is a fuse panel.
In that fuse panel are some 100A fuses. Should be 2 side by side. Check and see if they are blown.
I suspect one of them are.
A few hours later the temp ggauge shows it is very, EXTREMELY hot, even if I only drove it for only 5 minutes. I take the car to my regular mechanic who says the "jumping it may have damaged the thermostat." He changed radiator, thermostat.
I take the car on a long drive from New York City to Jersey, and about 100 miles the radio pops, then the odometer crackles, and both give a puff of smoke. The car dies with smoke coming from the battery and the under-the-hood fuse box. But NO fuse was tripped.
I take it to a garage, who say "the PCM is gone, you need a new one." When I go to pick up the car, they say it was the alternator which was overcharging, putting out almost 20 volts. They put a new one and a new battery but left the old PCM. I start the car, again, the battery is completely dead. They jump the car with cables, tell me it will reach home. I find the odometer and speedometer are not working, they refuse to repair it. Also the wipers do not work when I turn them to the first setting, but work on the higher speeds.
I get home, able to turn it on and off several times within about 30 minutes each with no problems. The next day, again the battery is completely dead, this time a new battery!
Questions:
1) Why would a battery be completely dead from ONE day to another, with ALL switches off, yet not discharge when turned off earlier? :sick:
2) Why would both the odometer and speedometer be dead in this case? Aren't these a mechanical linkage? :mad:
3) Why didn't the fuses tripped?? :confuse:
It will run fine for a while and then, out of nowhere, the volt meter will drop to about 10 and it is just a matter of time before it will not run.
The next day I may come out and start it up and the volts may be low but then all of the sudden they will jump up to normal - about 14 - and it will run fine for a while... This is the LT - "electrical everything" - doors, windows, seats, remote locks - .
Dealership can't even figure it out.
Other symptoms: rear passenger window works intermittently. rear electric locks work intermittently
HELP Pleaaaaase!
Get yourself a voltmeter, and when you have this problem that is shows 10 volts on your inside meter, put the voltmeter on your battery. If the battery shows 10 volts as well, then you know the battery is bad. However, if the battery shows 14 volts and the inside gauge shows 10 volts, then you are dropping 4 volts in your cables/connectors.
If you are showing a 4 volt drop across the wiring, you can possibly do more analysis depending upon your electrical skills. So in this case you have 14 volts on the battery, but only 10 on the inside gauge. You are trying to find whether the 4 volts is lost across the positive cable, or across the negative cable. So if you meter from the +battery to the engine block and get 10 volts, then you know that the 4 volts is lost in your ground circuit from the engine block back to the battery. Put your meter from engine block to -battery, and you'll see the 4 volts. That would be the cable that has a problem either at the connections or inside the wire itself.
If you do +battery to engine block and it's 14v, with the inside meter 10v, then you would suspect the positive battery cable. Little harder to confirm this without getting zapped, but go down and the solenoid of the starter and meter across the positive cable from the battery to the starter solenoid. If you have a voltage, that's your problem cable. Take great care when working around the starter solenoid. Those cables are sized to deliver a lot of amperage, and also you don't want to apply 12v to the solenoid as it will engage and turn over the starter motor and engine.
This shouldn't be too hard to narrow down. If your dealer didn't find it, it's probably not easily spotted corrosion and could be up under the shield of the wire.
All of your electrical things in the vehicle not working......that's what you would expect if you didn't have enough voltage to properly drive them.
Think of the breaker box in a house. You have the individual circuits each fused at 15 or 20 amps. Collectively in the box, all of them will be fused at a maximum say 200 amps, which is the size that the main wire feeding the breaker panel can handle. This is the main breaker. It's that main breaker in a car which is typically referred to as a fusible link.
I had been out of town, and not able to follow this board closely. I just went back to re-read your symptoms. Can you please send me your electrical diagram to kiawah@carspace.com
I'll take a look and see if I can help figure this one out for you.
And a couple more questions...when you say the vibrating seat is fried....do you know that it doesn't work in some other vehicle, or you know that it just doesn't work in your same vehicle? (not sure I want you to go plug it somewhere else just yet, just trying to get clarity on the facts).
Also, does the vibrating seat indicate the normal current draw? or a wattage number? If not, can you give me the make/model?
Did the fuse for this lighter blow? and if so, was the correct rated fuse in the fuse box for this circuit? (ie, it was supposed to be a 15A, and it had a 20A in it)
-Don't push the cig lighter in again. If it is 'barely warming up', there is still a big problem on this circuit.
-Unfortunately, what probably happened is the massager drew more power than the cig lighter circuit is rated for. It probably had a short in it to do this. For some reason the fuse on the cig lighter did not blow before it started to do some serious damage. Of course, if the massager had a massive dead short, all the damage could have been done in an instant (speaking from experence here).
One thing the overload of power could have done is melt the insulation off the cig lighter wire, and melted into several other wires in the same wire 'bundle'. There could be various wires and circuits now cross connected with melted insulation inside a wiring bundle. Oh, joy! (See comment about prior experience!)
One approach might be to start tracing the cig wire backwards, cutting the bundle wrappings off all the way. This means getting under the dash, and possible even pulling the dash.
I'm not even going to give a wild guess about some computer module or a solid state dash display, etc that might have been overloaded and fried.
My experience was a 1964 auto. A car with a very, very simple wiring setup compared to a modern car. I shorted a wire to an amp guage. It melted insulation in a bundle back to the fuse box inside the car. And then on the other side of the fuse box where the circuit continued under the hood, it melted insulation across the width of the car in a bundle and down to the starter. And I has just rebuilt the bundle under the hood. This all was one big spark, connection was made probably one tenth of a second. And even 35 years ago, working under the dash of a car is not an easy job, laying jammed upside down in the floor of a car.
What did you say this was, a 93 Civic? It might be time to sell this thing to salvage rather than pay to attempt to fix it. Mechanics do not want to start on a search and find expedition of running down what is apparently multiple circuit failures caused by a large power short.
The light on the cruise control button lights up when pressed, but when I push the CC lever down, the cruise control does not turn on.
The mechanic I had taken it to could not find the problem.
Regarding the Recall on the cruise control, I thought I had this taken care of a couple of years ago.
Any suggestions?
Is your mechanic that you took it to the dealer (who should have the schematics and trouble shooting guides), or generic non manufacturer shop? The dealer should be able to find and fix this.
I was worried that it was more than a fuse. I will have the dealer look at it when I go in for the timing belt next month.
it sounds to me like the wrong fuse was installed in the cigarette lighter / accessory circuit to begin with. if it was pulling numerous amps, that should have opened up. i don't think any manufacturer rely's on an in-line fuse (solely) for ACC ckt, but the schematics will show this. probably, they have both a fuseable link and fuse, and the fuse should have gone.
i don't have access to the schematics either but i would say it's possible the alternator or diode assembly on same was damaged, even possibly the battery.
does the alternator and battery check out fine? take to Autozone for free diagnosis.
perhaps there is a power-control module somewhere in the Toyota system. I suspect that second, and third, I imagine the ECU could have been affected.
then again, if it were pulling a good number of amps and the fuse and fusable link didn't go, and you had wire heating... maybe there is an intermittent short in the ACC wiring now to ground.
Your advice sounds scary, but unfortunatley, possibly correct. No, it's not a 93 Civic. It is a beautiful, pristine 2005 Toyota Tundra Crew Cab w/only 17k miles on it. I thought a good place to start was the cigarette lighter wiring. Things seem progressive. The Nav system's auto dim at night no longer works and the screen to the touch gets hot. I'm going to send the wiring diagram to someone else who replied. I think a dealership "troubleshooting" will be massively expensive, and unless they think "out of the box", they won't find it. I won't even drive this anymore. Thanks for telling me not to push the lighter in anymore.
Which electrical diagram would you like? At alldatadiy.com, I downloaded almost everything.
There seems to be a bundle of wires that include the automatic speed control (which barely works) that is near the cigarette lighter...I am kind of lost though.
No, I wouldn't plug that thing into anything else, I had the guy at a car repair shop plug it into a battery meter checking thing, turned the massager on high, and...nothing, no readings. He then hooked a claw like device around the wiring of the massager and nothing...it was completely dead. I would have to get the box, but it was made by Clairol wih a cigerrate lighter attachment as it's only source.
The fuse didn't blow, and it was the correct fuse in the slot (15amp). I was actualy going to take this to a Toyota dealer in Raleigh (5 hrs away), but I'm afraid to drive it and cause more damage. I would be very grateful for you to look at the diagrams you are requesting.
I'm actually in Raleigh, which dealership would you take it to (Leith, Andersen?). Are you at the Outer Banks or something?
I sent you an e-mail with the info you need to get all of the schematics. I talked to the service mgr at Anderson and he agreed that codes don't have to be present for there to be a problem (first one to admit that). Outer Banks, I wish! I am in a podunk town near WV. Maybe you understand the dilema...!
Everything I listed is what is not working now, to my knowlege, everything else is working, so far.
Check your email.
As you drive the car, it uses up power from the battery. The alternator charges the battery back up.
Take your vehicle to an autoparts store (pep boys, autozone, etc), most chains will do a free battery and alternator test.
- your battery connections, make sure no corrosion on either of the two battery terminals, and no corrosion where the other end of the cables connect (engine block, and starter), and make sure they are tight connections
- your main fuselink (usually up near the battery, and big hunk of metal), made to be the master fuse capable of 100Amps or so. Make sure there is no corrosion on those terminals (careful, it's connected directly to the battery).
- I would then check your ignition switch, and ignition relay if there is one. This would be the main 'switched on' power buss that feeds many fused circuits in the vehicle.