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No power, Key on

jmartell

jmartell

New member
Ive looked....

06 Grand Prix base 3800 series 3 (218XXXkm). Wife drives it, shes no help. Its in the drive way at least. Battery is good, shows 12.9 off, put the key to on and nothing, no lights, no crank, no nothing. Pulled a few "batt main"" fuses and theyre good. What now?

Didnt see an electrical forum, so i posted here....
 


could be a bad ground, on the tranny bell housing is where the neg cable is bolted to the engine, with it is 1 or maybe 2 other smaller grounds, they can break off the eyelet some times. or have bare metal showing at the end. same for the neg bat cable, if its got bare metal showing the cable could be bad as well.
 
Cables at the batt look good. Ill go check the grounds now...even though its snowing and below freezing....
 
just came to mind, you 04 up guys got a thing on the pos cable, it has some thing to do with voltage and does go bad. so if theres no power at the starter where the pos cable is bolted on id think that thing what ever its called went bad. there should be 12 volts at the starter all the time. where the pos cable bolts on.
 
Good info. Thanks. It'll have to wait till tomorrow. Gotta be up for work @ 0430. Checked where the ground goes to the block (sorta, its dark and cold and snowing and im ready for bed), feels good lol. Its the no power at all to the car that has me wondering where the problem lay. Ill be sure to check the pos cable, theres two, they split from the batt + terminal, one goes to the fuse block under the hood and that has batt voltage when checked with the ground on the batt. Didnt think to check the block as a ground on that, but tomomorrow is another day. Thanks ScottyDoggs :)

its the no power to the car period that has me leaning towards a master fuse from the batt to the car. My jetta has one, im sure most other cars/pick ups do too....

anyone with more info on this "thing on the POS cable that goes bad"? Or its location?
 
Scottydoggs said:
just came to mind, you 04 up guys got a thing on the pos cable, it has some thing to do with voltage and does go bad. so if theres no power at the starter where the pos cable is bolted on id think that thing what ever its called went bad. there should be 12 volts at the starter all the time. where the pos cable bolts on.
Click to expand...
That may be an 04 thing only, my 06 base dose not have one. The only way to see if the battery is truely good on any 04+ is to load test it,the dying battery in my 06 base still hsowed 12 volts on the DIC when it was close to dead.
 


No volt meter on the DIC in this one. 12.9 V measured with a meter at the batt terminals. Ill fight with it a bit more today. Should be an easy day at work as its supposed to rain/snow all day
 
jmartell said:
No volt meter on the DIC in this one. 12.9 V measured with a meter at the batt terminals.
Click to expand...
How old is the battery? Might want to have it load tested. If it is toast, it can show voltage at rest, but when a load is put on it, that voltage will drop to nothing.
 
Long winded update:

Checked all grounds- dirty/rusty but solid and tight
Checked "BATT MAIN" fuses x4 under hood- all good
Batt tested 12.9V at posts, key off
Batt tested 12.9V at posts, key on
Terminals tested 4.5V where the batt terminal goes to the wires, both pos and neg
Removed terminals and cleaned posts and terminals, re-assemble--> lights, radio etc worked, batt to weak to crank, but got clicks from the starter.
Boost GP with Jetta, took a few mins to get enough to fire the GP
Tested at batt with GP running-->13.9V
Tested at terminals with GP running-->12.9
Tested alt out put to batt ground-->14.5
Alt output to nasty looking bolt under the hood-->14.5V (rust belt car, everything not painted is rusted)

let it run about 20 mins, turned it off and restarted it 3X waiting about 10 mins between-->started no problem each time, all acc off.
Left it run for another 20 mins and checked the Batt-->15.9V at the terminals, overcharging says it dying

shut it down and take the jetta to the NAPA up the street for a batt. i was there about 40 mins, getting a batt, shooting the ****. came home, tried the GP again, and it fired after an extended crank, starter slowed down before it caught.

so the alt is good, but there's a serious voltage drop from the terminals to the cables, which will be addressed over the weekend. I'll get some new terminals and clean the wires up and re-assemble and check it again. The terminals are only a couple bucks each, and the car was free, so I'm still ahead. Batt was old, not sure how old. It was my moms car before I got it, but my wife (the GP's normal driver) has drained it completely at least 4 times since we got it last January, by leaving high draw **** plugged in...so I'm not surprised it gave up. Put the new one in yesterday, and its been fine today. This thing only has to last the winter, its for sale (or scrap) in the spring.

Wife also gave me the "what happened" from Wednesday night: She left work, everything was fine. Pulled in the driveway, put it in park, and it died.....not sure how bad voltage drop and poor connections manifested so suddenly....

Thanks for the input guys :)

Have a good weekend
 
Last edited:
Well, it happend again. It had been fine since i put the new battery in it. Yesterday morning, my wife called me to say it wouldnt do anything. I was at work already (1 hr away), but her dad was home, and tried to boost it to no avail. Told her i'd check it out when i got home. But i broke a rib yesterday, and couldnt do much of anything.

when she returned home from dropping me off at the hospital, she tried it again, and boom, it started.....

....damn electrical gremlins.....
 
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