van died! HELP

Hello all.. First post here, never came here before because its my mother that owns this van not myself. But since i have driving it for the past couple of days, my luck stuff started happening to it now...

First off, the car radio has been having problems for a while now. Its an aftermarket radio. A month ago or so the vans tranny blew and the same very second the tranny blew the radio blew. Weird because i dont see a connection between the two... I have checked the wires connected to the radio adn everything seems ok. I know a little about radios(FYI).. Everytime i change the fuse on teh radio and plug it back up it burns the fuse, and i cant find what is causing it to burn.

Second yesterday i get home and go inside. When i came out this morning to go to work the car wouldnt start, but wouldnt even crank. I looked around and noticed i did not leave anything on. But the battery was COMPLETELY dead. Not even a little power at all. I find this weird. The battery was perfectly fine until today!!! I tried charging it for 10 minutes with another car and no luck. It was just that dead. THe guy had to leave so i just took a cab to work.
When i was charging it it did get smoe power to it just not enough...

What could have causeed this to happen?? any ideas???

TIA!!!!

Hi and Welcome to AF.

What year vehicle, mileage?

How old is battery?

Sounds to me like the battery is bad, Check the battery posts and cable ends. Boosting it for ten minutes is a good indication that it has a short in the battery cells. Battery voltage should be 12.6V with out vehicle running.

Check to make sure alternator is working properly. Alternator output should be at the 13.6V to 14.5V range.

If you have another battery from a different vehicle remove the old battery and hook up the other vehicle battery.

If you have a multimeter test the vehicle for a battery drain by disconnecting the negative cable and putting one lead from the multimeter on the positive cable that is still hooked up and one lead on the battery cable that is disconnected if the meter says 0 volts no drain, if showing a voltage drain start pulling fuses to figure out where the drain is.

As for the tranny and radio failing at the same time I don't know. Will have to look at diagrams to see if the two are related somehow.

What year vehicle, mileage? 1997/ 1240000

How old is battery? i have no idea, my mother has had the car for about 6 months[/quote]

Sounds to me like the battery is bad, is it possible for it to just die completely over night without a drain?[/quote]

Check to make sure alternator is working properly. Alternator output should be at the 13.6V to 14.5V range. how would i check this? what tool is needed? would autozone have that?

If you have a multimeter test the vehicle for a battery drain by disconnecting the negative cable and putting one lead from the multimeter on the positive cable that is still hooked up and one lead on the battery cable that is disconnected if the meter says 0 volts no drain, if showing a voltage drain start pulling fuses to figure out where the drain is. i will see if autozone has this and i will check it. This is weird mainly because it happened out of no where..

As for the tranny and radio failing at the same time I don't know. Will have to look at diagrams to see if the two are related somehow. this has me spooked as well.. very weird stuff. Seems as if there is a short somewhere, but i have no idea how to continue looking? if i check a fuse and its blown how do i know where to check for it?
Once pluggin the radio it will kill the fuse, so i know there is something wrong with that, but no idea what to check for?? I am just confused with this..

Yes the battery can go bad without a drain. If you have a battery charger try charging the battery but disconnect the cables from battery first.

Yes autozone can test the alternator on the vehicle or off vehicle. First try a different battery ( maybe a friend or neighbor would let you try theirs to see if it will start) Then have autozone test alternator while engine id running.

Autozone will have a multimeter for sale not sure if they have them in LOAN A TOOL PROGRAM.

When you say plugin the radio do mean putting the fuse in or fuse in and when you plug the radio into circuit the fuse blows?

Yes the battery can go bad without a drain. If you have a battery charger try charging the battery but disconnect the cables from battery first.

Yes autozone can test the alternator on the vehicle or off vehicle. First try a different battery ( maybe a friend or neighbor would let you try theirs to see if it will start) Then have autozone test alternator while engine id running.

Autozone will have a multimeter for sale not sure if they have them in LOAN A TOOL PROGRAM.

When you say plugin the radio do mean putting the fuse in or fuse in and when you plug the radio into circuit the fuse blows?

I will try autozone for all this once i get out of work. THanks

What happens is that i change the fuse in the back of the radio then i plug the back of the radio to the harness from the car, then it will blow the fuse.

The car and the radio both take 10amp fuse. if a higher amp fuse is put on the radio the car fuse will blow, and if higher fuse on the car the radio fuse will blow. If both are the same amp as it should be the radio one will blow. I know you should always but the amp fuse that it says but i ran out of fuses and just tried the other ones to see. I have been thu like 10 fuses trying to figure out the problem and just cant get it. There where like two wire that i found off of the radio harness that were exposed and taped them each up. But still nothing!

Fuse in back of fuse blowing makes me believe the radio has a internal problem causing the blown fuse. If the fuse in the fuse block does not blow with radio disconnected I would think electrical is fine to radio connection.

Fuse in back of fuse blowing makes me believe the radio has a internal problem causing the blown fuse. If the fuse in the fuse block does not blow with radio disconnected I would think electrical is fine to radio connection.

this is what i thought about as well. I just wasnt sure. I will try to plug up another radio and see what happens. Hopfully its just that. I have a radio laying around anyways, so i will try it later on today once i get the battery issue resolved.

I just hope its a bad battery and nothing else. I need this car to get around at the moment, and no time to spend fixing it.

Extreamly WEIRD! So yesterday i Change the battery with my friends and start the van take off the battery and put the old one back on so it could charge up.

So it happens to be that the lights were on without the switch benig turned on! :banghead: I have no idea how in the world this was possible!!! I never turned on the lights, and the lights were on OFF position, but the lights were still on! HUH??

Second the rear controls for the ac/heat were not working, but there was a vent that was on in the back. So i unplugged the rear control plug from the climate control upfront. (as a temp fix)..

Then once all this was done, i noticed that the control module for the CD changer that is installed was making a clicking noise and it wouldnt go away. Being that it was already kinda late, i just disconnected the damn changer. I will look more in this, this weekend.

Just thought i should share this, being that it is a very unsual occurance! at least i feel it is.

BTW: the car started perfectly fine this morning! :thumbsup:

Quote: "So it happens to be that the lights were on without the switch benig turned on! :banghead: I have no idea how in the world this was possible!!! I never turned on the lights, and the lights were on OFF position, but the lights were still on! HUH??"

Are the taillights on as well?? You may have not noticed before but you may have DAYTIME RUNNING LIGHTS. Look in the engine compartment on the passenger side by the cruise control servo, is there a black box behind it, if so it has DRL's and they will be on when vehicle is running.

Quote: "Second the rear controls for the ac/heat were not working, but there was a vent that was on in the back. So i unplugged the rear control plug from the climate control upfront. (as a temp fix).. "

Were any of the connectors or switches melted on the climate control panel?
With a vent being on I assume that the rear fan was operating.

CD changer I have no clue but maybe that has something to do with the radio fuse blowing.

Are the taillights on as well?? You may have not noticed before but you may have DAYTIME RUNNING LIGHTS. Look in the engine compartment on the passenger side by the cruise control servo, is there a black box behind it, if so it has DRL's and they will be on when vehicle is running.
this van does not have drl's.. that i am sure of. Its weird it wasnt the headlights persay, but it was the parking lights that were on. Everything excapt for the headlights. I open the switch then turned them back off and they actually went off..

Were any of the connectors or switches melted on the climate control panel?
With a vent being on I assume that the rear fan was operating.
no connectors were melted or anything.
You just stated that there is a fan that operated teh rear vents? I was not aware of this, but that is what i was referring to. It was not the vents that were on but some sort of fan. I figured that it was the vents because i did not know there was a fan located in the back or should i say behind the drivers cabin..

I will try to look into this a little more this weekend and see if i could come up with anything... As of right now, it just seems as if this van has a mind of its own and does not operate by one controlling it.:uhoh:

CD changer I have no clue but maybe that has something to do with the radio fuse blowing.
that what i was think as well.. I will also look into this futher this weekend with some free time.

Hey Just came by your post. Here's a few sugesstions you can possible try.

I'm pretty sure you van has DRL, I have a 95 and it has DRLs. It's common for the DRL control module to go bad, I've seen this cause the lights to turn on and sometimes the high beams not to work.

As for you radio, check to see if you have a subwoofer. If you do there's an amp somewhere in the back. Who ever installed it may have connected the power from the amp to the always hot lead on the radio, this can drain your battery. You need to do this in order to make the amp turn on but it should be connected to the key on power lead instead.

And about your back fan not working, that's also a common problem, you can find the fix some where in the forum. You'll need to soder the relay on the from controler board. Or as a workaround you can connect the lead on the front switch for the rear blower to ground.

Hopfully some of these ideas help =D