Thread: 2004 GP Naturally Aspirated, Electrical Crackle when I close hood

Hello,

I have a 2004 Grand Prix, NA with about 160K miles and it's been pretty reliable but it's always had a few quirks but it seems to becoming a bit more problematic.

Since I've owned the car (2014 it had 80k miles) it required some coaxing with the gas to start up, turning the key without pumping the gas a little would often result in a stall. This has never seemed to get worse but is just part of the state of things

New Problems:

• When I am gently accelerating I get an oscillation in the rpms in the mid range. I've tried replacing my MAP sensor which saw some improvement from when it was really bad but it seems to return regularly. While my warranty at Autozone stands, I'm getting rather tired of swapping them out.
• When I close the hood I can hear an electrical crackle like arcing. I haven't seen any electrical weirdness from the other systems (unless the rpm one is related) but it's concerning
• Today after opening the hood to check oil before going to work, I heard the crackle on close and my high blower went out. (Haven't had time to check the fuse)

Mainly I'm trying to figure out where I should start tracing that kind of electrical issue as I imagine it's a bad ground or short that jumps along the hood. (This is all observable when the car is off by the way)

Check the backside of the fuse box under the hood for bad wires.

Remove and clean the throttle body until it shines.

When was the last time it had the plugs/wires replaced?

I will take a look at that area! and cleaning the throttle body sounds easy enough. I have a spare TPS as well I'm going to swap in for the oscillation. The wires are a bit aged I will look at replacing the battery cables as they're showing a bit of corrosion as well and the ground is pulling away from the attachment point. I didn't know to look behind that big fuse box. Will do!

The blower resumed working when I pulled the HVAC fuse in the internal fuse box and reseated it but then ceased again today. So sounds like I have some work to do.

Please let me know when you get some resolution on this. I've been having a similar issue, except mine is RESOLVED by slamming the hood shut. Until it happens again....

Update on this. Turns out the crackling popping sound was NOT electrical but was actually air and oil escaping from the hood support pistons. Eventually they failed all together. Luckily it did not fall on me.

I replaced the pistons and haven't heard anything of the sort since.

As for the oscillations and hard start, I've found other people mentioning cleaning the throttle body and replacing the TPS so I'm doing that when the weather breaks (stupid snow)

Originally Posted by reenact12321

Update on this. Turns out the crackling popping sound was NOT electrical but was actually air and oil escaping from the hood support pistons. Eventually they failed all together. Luckily it did not fall on me.

I replaced the pistons and haven't heard anything of the sort since.

As for the oscillations and hard start, I've found other people mentioning cleaning the throttle body and replacing the TPS so I'm doing that when the weather breaks (stupid snow)

Very interesting. I just had cracklings noise and figured there was an old leave somewhere. Such a strange occurrence for noise it makes. Thanks for answer