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Electrical Issues?
addiscott1425
Member Posts: 1
We recently bought a used 2006 Chevy Malibu. The day after we brought it home we started experiencing an issue. While actively driving it, all of gauges on the dash will drop to zero. The speedometer, the temp l, the oil and gas gauges will all drop to zero. The cruise control also seems to be affected, the a.c. still blows but blows warm air and if set, the cruise control will disengage. The anti-theft lock light also comes on. All of a sudden the gauges will engage again but then they will drop again. This process will repeat until they finally stay at zero until we pull over and restart the car. I looked up issues with this model and only found a recall on the BCM. The description on this recall doesn't match my problems though. Does anyone know of what could cause this or has anyone else experienced this?
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Answers
I'd check the engine ground wire. Loosen and wiggle and retighten to be sure they have a good connections that' not corroded. Do same for ground wires from battery to a fender or frame connection if there's more than one ground (black) wire from your battery.
Some batteries in that era had two red connections on the red post on the battery. They were connected internally by a spacer that was made of lead, IIRC. The cables themselves were aluminum. Take the positive wires off and separate them looking for the spacer and looking for the quality of the contact surfaces of the two leads--if your car has them. The lead spacers could corrode as well as the ends on the red wires.
Look for the age on the battery and check its state-of-charge. I'm thinking low battery voltage causes the computers to shut down that control different items. You could have a bad cell that goes in and out. You could have a bad post that loses contact in the battery.
Try wiggling the ignition key while the car is running with these things on. Don't wiggle so far as to hit the crank contact, but wiggle it around to see if the ignition switch that the igntion lock connects to may have worn contacts that are losing contacct with heat. A poor connection heats up and the heated contact then breaks the circuit. The switch also might lose contact when the car hits a bump that shakes the switch, on top of the steering column under the dash usually, causes it to lose the connection that's worn from lots of on-off cycles.
The gauges also may have their own connection problem because of contacts on the circuit sheets behind the cluster.
But to me it sounds more like you're losing power generally somewhere.
What happens while driving at night with the headlights on?
2014 Malibu 2LT, 2015 Cruze 2LT,