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ok, its day two of this prob. using the remote I open the door and zero lights. turn key nothing. disconnect the pos. batt cable, reconnect and wallah. she fires right up. yesterday, open the door, everything works but the radio and windows, turn key no start. do the batt thing and again, starts right up. I am certain that it's not the following:
Been having similar issues myself on my 01 Z. It sat for weeks during the winter and never a starting problem. Now it sits for a coule of weeks and just clicks the relay when I try to start it on a few occasions. Battery connections are clean and tight. I stick it on a 12v battery charger with a jumpstart mode and it starts right up. I tried charging the battery and it will not take a charge. I even went to the dealer and they checked the battery and said it's fine. I'm thnking maybe the starter terminals are loose or corroded? The battery appears to be original and says it's a 7 year battery. Car has about 10,500 miles. I put in a window valet and had the issue after that. I wonder if it's related?
sounds to me like you have a drain when the car is off. The Valet might be hooked up wrong and is drawing power all the time, in which case would not be enough to kill the cells in your batt, just run it low. Batteries are designed to run high and low (different levels).
I would agree with you that your first place to check would be your starter wires, even if they look good and tight, pull all the wires off & clean them and the starter terminals too. if still the same thing, pull out the valet and see if prob. continues. just my 2 cents . good luck.
The "SIMPLE" battery cable is NOT so simple! OEM batteries can leak acid inside the area wher the terminal screws into the battery and allow corrosion to build up inside the terminals. Spray your battery cable terminals out with brake parts cleaner and WD-40. Put them back on the battery and torque them to 11 ft/lbs. That will eliminate most of the problems associated with the terminals amd battery cables.
I can't imagine the window valet being hooked up wrong. It just plugs into the OBD port under the dash. I am wondering if it's related or just coincidental. And Bill,Thanks for the tip.
I have had the same problem a couple of times, months apart. Each time it has been corrosion on the negative battery post. Cleaning and tightening the connection takes care of it. I think what happens is the connection is good enough to allow enough power through to let the accessories work, but not enough amperage to turn over the starter.
I offer this as you mentioned that you have had luck removing and reinstalling the postive cable. Perhaps it is the negative and your efforts were just enough to improve the negative connection.
As a diagnostic suggestion, I found that when I had the problem the battery voltage as shown on the DIC would vary a lot. Once resolved the voltage was pretty stable.
Check your Theft Deterrent Relay and make sure that it is good. If you remove the Toe Board in the passengers foot well, the relay is above the BCM (silver box) and forward on the fire wall. It can be identified as follows. It will have four wires; Red ,Purple, black and yellow/black stripe. The red and purple wires will be 10 gauge heavy duty wire and the other wires will be small guage wires.
WARNING!! Make sure that your car is "OUT OF GEAR" and the wheels are blocked when you mess with this relay.
The relay controls the starter solenoid. If you connect the purple and red wires together, the starter will turn the engine over. When I checked mine the relay was full of condensation and all corroded inside. If you remove the plastic case on the relay, when you turn the key the relay should close the contacts and the engine should turn over. If they dont, let me know and we can get a LOT deeper into your starting/charging circuit.
back to my original post..... any advice for my prob?
Get a digital Volt Ohm meter and perform a voltage drop test. If you are not comfortable doing this, get a local shop to do it. This is basic stuff of any Tech. Sounds to me like you have high resistance somewhere in the circuit. Basically, you measure voltage along the circut path and if you see the voltage drop between two points, say the positive battery terminal and where the terminal hooks into the starter solenoid, the problem lies between those two points.
You say that all interior lights and radio work but the car will not crank. Keep in mind, it only takes about 2 Amps to power internal accessories. Just because they work, means nothing. You are looking at about 200 Amps minimum to get your started to engage. Big difference. You say the battery is good and you had it tested. What did they do to test it? Did they perform a load test on the battery?
Been having similar issues myself on my 01 Z. It sat for weeks during the winter and never a starting problem. Now it sits for a coule of weeks and just clicks the relay when I try to start it on a few occasions. Battery connections are clean and tight. I stick it on a 12v battery charger with a jumpstart mode and it starts right up. I tried charging the battery and it will not take a charge. I even went to the dealer and they checked the battery and said it's fine. I'm thnking maybe the starter terminals are loose or corroded? The battery appears to be original and says it's a 7 year battery. Car has about 10,500 miles. I put in a window valet and had the issue after that. I wonder if it's related?
This is a bad battery that has insufficent reserve capacity. Probably only 25 % of the plates working. Test ok with voltage but doesn't have enough amperage to crank over. It clicks because when the relay closes the starter gets power,, due to low cranking amps in reserve the voltage drops below the required volts to hold the solonoid in and it drops out. My money is on a new bat. to fix this one. 99 nassau Blue
Jim, thanks. I agree. I've been trying to drive it more for now to see if problem reoccurs. I drove it yesterday and the volts went back to 13.4 while driving. The past couple times I drove it after battery died it was at 14 volts.
Check your Theft Deterrent Relay and make sure that it is good. If you remove the Toe Board in the passengers foot well, the relay is above the BCM (silver box) and forward on the fire wall. It can be identified as follows. It will have four wires; Red ,Purple, black and yellow/black stripe. The red and purple wires will be 10 gauge heavy duty wire and the other wires will be small guage wires.
WARNING!! Make sure that your car is "OUT OF GEAR" and the wheels are blocked when you mess with this relay.
The relay controls the starter solenoid. If you connect the purple and red wires together, the starter will turn the engine over. When I checked mine the relay was full of condensation and all corroded inside. If you remove the plastic case on the relay, when you turn the key the relay should close the contacts and the engine should turn over. If they dont, let me know and we can get a LOT deeper into your starting/charging circuit.
BC
I checked terminals. Not dirty, car has 9k miles and has never seen rain.
I will check into the relay. I'll let you know what I find.. No worries on the starter deal, she's an automatic.
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