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Originally Posted by gforster
Hey you are just in luck.. I have a 96 Grand and just finished installing remote start on it this weekend. I had the negative battery terminal removed for safety, but I temporarily placed it loosely back on the post from time to time as I needed in order to check things during the install. One of these times I went to start and got nothing but I got the crazy relay buzzing and the door locks/interior lights going crazy! I just firmed the battery connection up a bit and it all stopped and worked fine. The buzzing is something relays do when they don't get enough current. You defenetely have a battery cable connection issue here. Check the grounds as well. You don't need a computer or anything else. If you still have probs have the battery checked. Lemme know what you find...  ))
Geoff |
Thank-you, Thank-you, Thank-you!!! Your post hit the nail on the head. Before reading your post I just knew I had a short or bad control module. Trouble shooting these would have taken hours and could have cost many $$$. As it turned out I fixed the problem in ten minutes and it didn't cost a dime.
Yesturday my 1998 Dodge Caravan SE's instrument cluster started go crazy while driving down the road and was even worse while parked. After a little while the problem just went away. Drove fine all this morning then cut the van off and it would not restart. It would act just like a weak battery but voltage across the terminals was 12+.
Other symptoms I experienced were:
- interior and exterior lights were dim or not functioning at times
- could hear several relays clicking wildly when turning on ignition switch without even trying to start it
- sometimes relays and instrument gauges would still go crazy even after switch was turned off and keys
WERE REMOVED
- windows would not go up and down
- power door locks would barely work, relays would click many times as lock slowly went down or up
- did get the car to start once or twice but the gauges and lights were going crazy and the radio had a cracking/popping noise especially when the engine RPM was increased
I found a very easy way to determine this as the cause:
- start with the engine off and the keys removed
- using a simple volt meter check the voltage of the battery on the posts; make sure you are firmly pushing on the lead posts and not any part of the cable clamps. You should get a readying of 12+ volts. If not, charge the battery 1st or have it checked out.
- now turn something on that will draw some current. I tried the horn and headlights as I could reach these while still holding the volt meter probes on the battery posts. If the battery is doing well you should see little change in the voltage maybe 0.5V to 1.0V at most.
- next I moved my probes from the lead posts to an exposed metal point on the cable clamps
- with nothing on I still got about 12V but it was about 0.25V to 0.5V less than directly on the posts
- finally I tried the horn again. This time the voltage dropped way down to about 6V. Of course this will vary depending on how bad the connection is. Obviously the current wasn't making it through the connection from the posts to the clamps.
The solution:
- disconnected both clamps from the battery
- cleaned posts and clamps with a wire brush and a corrosion cleaner/preventive (my personal favorite -- clean with paste of baking soda and water then prevent future corrosion with paste of baking soda and petroleum jelly)
- reconnected both clamps, making sure they are on tight
- no more problems, engine fired right up and everything else functions just fine
Again, Thank-you, Thank-you, Thank-you for leading me to this solution.
