something weird is going on with my 01 vert. this morning i drove it to lunch and parked it for no more than 30 mins. chicago weather right now is about 35 degrees and my house is garaged in my condo around 50 degrees. upon returning to my car and trying to start it, i hear a clicking/popping noise and the car will not start. everything electrical is completely dead: no clock, no turning of the motor, no DIC lights, not even the power door locks. assuming it is a dead battery, i jump it and it starts up fine. i drive it for about 20 mins and the car runs but i am keeping a careful eye on the DIC voltage reading and it stays within a small range between 12.0-14.3 volts. however i notice the lights and instrument panel is flickering and after trying to turn on my headlights, neither they nor the fogs go on. turn signals operate normal. i return to my garage and turn the car off, and once doing that i can no longer start it again...same problem as before, everything goes dead. however, this is where the weird part starts. i hear a clicking noise that continues to come from the engine area and upon inspection i notice that it is both headlight motors still turning. no where else on the car has power except a faint light coming from the underhood lamp. i pull the fuses for the headlights and they stop. put them back in and it goes away. i just went back down to the garage after about 4 hours and the sound has returned. anybody know what this is all about or has had similar problems? originally i thought it was simply a dead delco battery (40k miles and 4 years of driving the car), but with this noise coming from the headlight motors, i am starting to believe that the battery is being drained from the motors continuing to run after i shut the car off and draining the battery. is this an electrical problem or are the motor noises a result of a dead battery? need help quick since i cant even get a tow truck into the tight condo garage. thanks for all the help.

 

ttt. i need to drive before the snow really hits....

 

The electrical gremlins show up when the battery is near dead. I never tried the headlights, but my door would lock and unlock endlessly.

 

Had mostly the same symptoms you've described.

The power problems are most likely due to a BAAAAD battery. (My OEM battery only survived 2 years, but that included moves for the car to and from Germany...think some eeediot left the key turned which drained the battery at some point.) Replaced it with an up-to-date Delco model. Will probably go with an Optima Red Top next time.

Anyway...

I've also had problems with my headlight motors. The primary gear inside of them is made of plastic. Turns out my LF headlight motor gear broke a few of it's teeth and that's what caused my gears to turn forever and a day before finally catching and stopping. This may be you problem as well. (Not sure.) If it sounds like it is, DON'T let the dealer convince you to get a whole new unit. It's simple enough to fix it all on your lonesome. (1.5 wrenches out of 5 rating.)

Replace the offending gear(s) with brass ones. You can order them from several aftermarket sources. (I found mine via the CF . Searched using the terms "headlight" and "gears" - http://forums.corvetteforum.com/sear...earchid=721820 . Purchased the gears from http://www.rodneydickman.com/retail.html .) If I remember correctly, the instructions said it would take about 1 hour for each lamp to do the work. I took about 2.5 hours to fix my problem LF lamp (never did it before; wanted to make sure I did it right; wanted to make sure the epoxy used to seal the gear casing didn't create a mess and set properly).

Good luck!

 

Get a new battery installed, clear all storred codes and you should be GOOD TO GO!!!

 

kedvesh,

thanks for the heads up. however, i have had the headlamp motor gears strip twice and had them replaced under warranty. the symptom for this time though is something else, actually kinda weird. everything goes dead, even the radio clock and there is zero power. but if u wait about 5 mins, u hear a faint cranking noise and BOTH headlamp motors are still turning. theyre not the typical loud grinding noise that occurs when the gears are stripped but in this case it keeps going and going and going, without any signs of strain. oh well, it's a vette. i expected it.