01 Grand Am Electrical Issue

I have a 2001 Pontiac Grand AM GT. The car just started having problems with the electrical system. When you turn the key to on the dash lights turn on for a second then they turn off along with the headlights and the radio. Then after you sit there for about a minute everything turns back on. When the lights are off you can still start the car though. I plugged in my OBD2 scanner and there were two error codes. The two codes were P0443 and P0449. When I looked up those codes it looks like there might be a problem with the "Evaporative Emission Control System Purge Control Valve Circuit." I deleted the codes from the computer and I am going to check them again today to see if they have came back. Does anyone have any idea what could be happening? I don't know if there is a short in the electrical system or if one of the relays might be going bad. Any help would be much appreciated.

so you turn the key to the ON position, you see lights for a second and radio starts playing, then suddenly everything shuts off. Is this correct? or are you talking about the lights that illuminate ipc, radio display and buttons? You know that your car is equipped with day light sensing sensor so people can get confused sometimes since it takes a minute for the sensors to adopt to the outside light. Then you said if you wait for a minute everything comes on - during that minute are you moving the key?


this also sounds like loose ignition switch or loose mechanism that turns the ignition switch. You can try this: remove ignition switch (not the key cylinder) do not disconnect anything just remove it and let it hang then put the key into ignition cylinder and turn it to the on position then use something like screw driver to turn the ignition switch to the on position and see how lights behave and let me know what happens.

All of the electrical lights turn on when they key is turned to on for a second. So the dash lights up the radio lights up the headlights turn on. Then all of the lights turn off. I leave the key in the on position and wait about a minute then all of the lights turn on like normal. The day light sensor should not be doing this I don't think. It does it in the day and at night. The daylight sensor also should not shut the radio off and turn off the lights on the dash. I leave the key in the on position the whole time I don't move the key once I turn it to on.

I can check the ignition switch but is there a reason that if it is loose that it would after a minute all of a sudden turn everything on without me touching the key?

is that one minute period of waiting constant and same length every time?

also give me engine size v6 or I-4 (must be v6 if you have this codes)

I need to know if you can hear the radio during that minute of waiting? please answer this it is important to know.
I looked at the v6 diagram for your model, did not see any relays involved

if it is constant and same timing every time then I would suspect something electrical if not then it is something like intermittent contact

also did you install after market radio recently?

also disconect evap solenoid connector and see what happens to lights (maybe evap circuit is shorting shorting something)

The length of time is different every time. I just timed it twice the first time it took 5 minutes and 20 seconds before all of the lights on the dash came on. The second time it took approximately 3 minutes. It was taking about 1 minute yesterday when I was testing it.

The engine is a V6. I cannot hear the radio or roll down the windows when the lights are not working. I have not installed a new radio recently.

I don't know where the evap solenoid connector is so I'm not sure how to disconnect it. Would that be in the fuse box?

Also after doing some more testing tonight I noticed that the only light that does come on when everything else is off is the Service Engine Soon light. If I
manually turn the headlights on it lights up the dash but you still can't roll down the windows and the radio does not turn on. I plugged in the OBD2 scanner again and now there are some more codes. There is p0442, p0449, p0442 pd, p0443 pd, and p0443 pd. The pd stands for pending the manual says. Once the dash lights came on the scanner also picked up p0443 without the pd after it. Any help would be much appreciated.

If it was same every time then as I said it would most likely be something electrical like capacitors charging/discharging. Try this: next time just turn the key very slow if you have to do mm by mm and as soon as the lights come ON try to keep it in that position do not go any farther even if there is still more space for the key to be turned for the ON range. Then tell me what happens......thx 3100



this is what you will probably end up replacing
http://www.autozone.com/autozone/catalog/parts/partsProduct.jsp?displayName=Ignition+Switch&itemId=189-0&navValue=16200189&parentId=62-0&productId=223232&fromString=&itemIdentifier=223232_0_0_&filterByKeyWord=&categoryNValue=&isSearchByPartNumber=&categoryDisplayName=Ignition%28TuneUp%29&store=2583&skuDescription=Duralast/IgnitionSwitch&fromWhere=&searchText=&_requestid=539684