Thread: Loads of electrical gremlins

If this isn’t the right location for this post please correct me and I will fix it. Just recently bought a 2006 Grand Prix gxp. Sometimes when I turn the key I’ll have a check engine light come on but zero power to the gauge cluster or anything on the dash nor will the car attempt to start. I’ll have to turn the key off and back on a couple times and it will clear up. the check engine light goes off once I get the car started. The other day I heard an electrical interference noise coming from my front drivers side speaker but has only done it once. when it happened my gauges jumped around a little bit but leveled out and hasn’t done it again. My abs, traction control, and brake lights are all on and have a p0856 “traction control input signal” code. I still have wonky traction control despite the light on the dash but Dont have abs. The abs module was just recently swapped for a reman which fixed a bunch of codes. Any suggestions on where to look? From my understanding there are a blue million ground locations. The the ones I’ve found under the hood soon find and can’t find any bad wires under the dash. This is my first post and very new to the forum. Have been searching for a few days before posting so if I have missed a post that would help me out please guide me in the right direction

id start with cleaning the battery terminals.

Look under the dash pull down anything that hides the wires and start looking around for items that were spliced in and savagely ripped out later..

for example my car (97)had a ripped out remote start and aftermarket alarm system that didn't work and a ripped out aftermarket deck.

5 years later I'm still fighting and finding hacked up savage wire jobs that made my car both run like crap and do weird things.

I don't know to much about your car specificly but checking main grounds by the battery block and what ever you can find under the car and firewall will help..

Good luck bro report back when you find the culprit(s)

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You know the brake light is supposed to come on when you turn the key right? So does MIL etc etc. its a self test to show you the lights work.

I had very similar problems with the gauge cluster losing power and all kinds of lights going on used to happen in the middle of my drive to school and wouldn't go off until I did the same thing you stated to clear it up when I got my car a few year ago. if I remember right there are two grounds in front one under each headlight. noticed how corroded and barely attached they were when I swapped out the headlights and just decided to re-splice them since they were beyond the "cleaning point" lol. that made the problem much better use to have to deal with it every day and now only happens about once a month and only on startup I probably have another bad ground somewhere but it doesn't annoy me enough yet to diagnose and fix it haha. may need to take the front bumper off as well I remember I had mine off for something else. but might be able to do them with just the headlights out.

yea im no electrical guru in fact you probably know more than me I just know that worked for me the whole front end of my car is halfway rusted my radiator is being hung by zip ties lol since the support snapped from rust I don't know how the rust in KY compares to Michigan but that seemed to be the problem for me worth checking out