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GRRR!
On my way home from work on friday night, about half way home my radio, fog lights, cig lighter, rear defroster, brake lights, and dome lights all cut out. I got home and checked all my fuses, both boxes (one under the dash the other under the hood), and replace the TWO fuses that were blown and yet all those things still dont work.
Does anyone know what can cause this? Im kinda stuck without my car, and have a HUGE week ahead of me for work and need my car.
Start with your battery, make sure all the leads are clean and connected. Sometimes a bad fuse can burn other fuses out, are they all the correct ampage too?
Also, try not to start you car with all the lights, AC or any other mod cons on, this can over welm the fuse box, thus frying them!
RR
All the fuses are good and the correct fuses.
The battery connections are good and as clean as MN winter will allow.
Every time I start my car I start it without anything on, then procede to turn anything on that I may need.
My car is a 92 Acura Integra.
I called a couple of repair shops to see how much they would charge to fix it, and every place said $100 an hour for diagnostics, then charge for repair. Most of the shops said that it sounds like a long job. :?
Your car should have good on-line community support. I'd start by finding a technically oriented community, and posting for help there.
While waiting for suggestions from those who know your vehicle, in the mean time, you can check any and all of the following that are accessible:
(1) All fuseblocks - with many vehicles, there may be a main relay/fuse-box in the engine compartment, and then another fuseblock in the passenger compartment.
(2) The lights that went out - specifically, their sockets - for signs of moisture ingress/corrosion, anything that may cause a short. Typically, if water ingress has been a problem, you may even be able to see a "clouded" or obviously fogged/water'ed lens overlying that lamp housing
The next two will be harder, but if you're just sitting around waiting for others on those Forums to get back to you, you might as well give it a try:
- See if any piece of carpeting is noticeably wet/soaked. The wiring or components next to/underneath may be waterlogged. This can easily happen in the winter due to the constant tracking of snow/slush into the vehicle and/or a drain plug freezing or having been plugged up from road debris.
- See if there's an obvious ground short (rusted-out/disconnected). This is going to be one of those long-shots, but you might as well check and see.
Also, go to your local library or auto-parts store, and see if there's a Haynes or other such service manual for your vehicle, and look up the electrical systems troubleshooting section and/or wiring diagrams. Maybe there's something to be said for those specific accessories you noted to have misbehaved at the same time, and you can thus troubleshoot that way. You may be able to download service manuals through your enthusiast community, too.
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A word on Hondas/Acuras - finding a good technically-oriented community can be rather hard. Due to the "Ricers" and their preference for Hondas, your noise-to-signal ratio won't be all that great. However, if you do find a good community, you're likely to have plenty of good support, as these are considered "enthusiast" vehicles.
Best of luck!
I found a GREAT online forum for my car, for my specific car the 2nd generation Integra. Except you have to wait a week before you can post anything, and while spending all night there reading everything I could possibly find I found someone with my exact problem except there is one post after his and that guy said nothing about how to fix it.
The problem about waiting a week is that I HAVE to get to work this week and I need my car in running order.
I find it very strange that only these things went out and nothing else, if it were a ground wouldnt there be more things wrong with my system?
Oh man, bro, that TRULY sucks.I guess they must be trying to protect themselves from just the kind of noise-increasing floods that plague so many of their fellow Forums.
Maybe you could e-mail or otherwise contact the site Admin/Mods to let them know of your situation?
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I honestly wish I knew how to help you go about troubleshooting further, but I'm just a weekend greasemonkey shade-tree DIY wrench.ops: Outside of the basics, my knowledge pool is admittedly very shallow.
Part of the reason why I put the potential ground-fault last was because I also thought that it would be so much of an outlier that it couldn't possibly be the issue. But nevertheless, it's something that could be rather easily checked, especially if you had your factory wiring diagram available. And ground shorts really can occasionally do some weird things....sometimes it may not affect anything at all, and other times, who knows. :roll: :?:
Did the other possibilities check out OK, though?
It's a fuse, check the fuses you replaced, if they are blow again, then start with any electrical modifications you've done. Something is crossing.
if you did check that all the fuses are good, it could potentially be burned harnesses, or maybe the relays, it could be plenty of things in the line of power delivery, and that is the problem
I'm going with this one, look real good for larger fuses in the engine compartment.Originally Posted by TSi+WRX
I "ordered" my initial reply in terms of both what I think is more likely the case as well as in terms of how easy said items are to check (i.e. the relay/main fuse block and accessory fuse blocks should be simple panel-pulls, the lights are visual or with simple access panels, the carpeting is an easy "feel-by-hand" check, with subsequent carpeting pulls harder, the grounding checks would likely require a jack.....etc.).
I'm still hung-up on the possibility of two different fuse/relay blocks - as well as, increasingly, thinking that soaked carpet due to either water ingress (tracked in) or via blocked drain plug(s) could be a cause, as the OP said that the PRECISE issue has been reported before.
That means that there's some kind of pattern.
Also, what Arashi666 mentioned about a harness breach, with crossed wires now coming into contact with each other, is possible. With the wet weather (especially snow, which tends to "stick around" when it's cold out), there's more and more posts on the various car-enthusiast Forums that I frequent about various wiring (especially aftermarket) and connectors being breached by moisture, causing shorts.
Like ochlocracy said, check the fuses again - if they're blown, start in first on any aftermarket wiring (including the simple RD hardwire that you may have done), and then with known weak factory wiring issues (maybe it's a bad grommet, causing eventual rub-wear?).
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