Strange electrical issue
Thread Starter
3rd Gear
Joined: May 2023
Posts: 3
Likes: 0
Strange electrical issue
Good morning everyone.
I had a strange electrical issue today I’m hoping you guys can help me with. 2001 automatic with 81,000 miles. The car ran fine yesterday. It started up normally, I backed it out and shut it off to go back in the house. I restarted it and had just about every dash light lit up. The DIC was scrolling “reduced engine power, service vehicle soon, low fuel, tire pressure warnings and active handling”. The windows wouldn’t roll up and finally the interior lighting stopped working. It wouldn’t respond when I tried to retrieve codes. It came back to life after unhooking the battery for a few minutes. The battery is about 3 months old. My real question here is where should I look for the cause of this so it hopefully doesn’t happen again. Thanks in advance!
I had a strange electrical issue today I’m hoping you guys can help me with. 2001 automatic with 81,000 miles. The car ran fine yesterday. It started up normally, I backed it out and shut it off to go back in the house. I restarted it and had just about every dash light lit up. The DIC was scrolling “reduced engine power, service vehicle soon, low fuel, tire pressure warnings and active handling”. The windows wouldn’t roll up and finally the interior lighting stopped working. It wouldn’t respond when I tried to retrieve codes. It came back to life after unhooking the battery for a few minutes. The battery is about 3 months old. My real question here is where should I look for the cause of this so it hopefully doesn’t happen again. Thanks in advance!
Melting Slicks
Joined: Sep 2008
Posts: 3,117
Likes: 793
From: Espanola New Mexico
All the things you observed are indications that the seriel highway data buss was corrupt, all modules in c5 corvettes are linked together by a single wire. The problem is sometimes two connector that develop lose contacts, they connect the doors to the car and located in a rubber accordion. The only way to verify it was a serial highway data buss would be to connect a scan tool while the problem is present.
Drifting
Joined: Mar 2018
Posts: 1,364
Likes: 414
From: New Jersey
All the things you observed are indications that the seriel highway data buss was corrupt, all modules in c5 corvettes are linked together by a single wire. The problem is sometimes two connector that develop lose contacts, they connect the doors to the car and located in a rubber accordion. The only way to verify it was a serial highway data buss would be to connect a scan tool while the problem is present.
Moderator, Tech Contributor
Joined: Sep 2013
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From: Cape Coral, Florida
Thread Starter
3rd Gear
Joined: May 2023
Posts: 3
Likes: 0
Quick update. I left the battery disconnected for 9 hours while I was at work. Jiggled the accordions in both doors then reconnected the battery. The car fired right up with no issues. Went for a 30 minute drive and all seems good right now. I’ll be taking a closer look at the plugs in the accordions this weekend along with cleaning the grounds. A big thank you for all the replies, they were really appreciated.
