hey guys gotta a problem i drive a 2001 Z24 and here for the last few weeks or so i have been having a problem with my speedometer and all. For some reason randomly my gauges on the dash will go to zero it says my speed, temp, gas, and RPMS are all zero but the car is still running also every now and then my odometer will say error on it,. In addittion the brake, theft, ABS, every light on the dash will come on its really weird and today i noticed that when i turned my lights on while the a/c was on the ac would shoot less air with lights on then it did off, its really weird some days nothing and some everything is screwed i know its a electrical short just been really busy and no time to look for it anybody have any ideas where to start?? thanks guys i hate electrical stuff
I would start by checking the grounds if they are ok then probably it is a problem with the alternator maybe the voltage regulator or diodes, heard that some shops do a check out for free or for a few bucks.
I had a similiar problem to my car. I tore everything out of my car to look for a short. When I was changing my radiator fluid i was messing around under the hood and found out that it was the wiring box next to master cylinder. The wires were coming out of it. I pushed them back in and wrapped electrical tape around them and had no problems since
Same problem with my car. I found a short in a class 2 data wire (purple) in the harness going to the PCM under the radiator. The harness runs next to a sharp area of the radiator support on the pass side. It cut right into the wires. And it was also intermittent.
thanks guys i will check it out
Go to the negative battery terminal. Follow the negative cable down and check the ground terminal at the base of the battery. This is the chassis ground. If this connection is bad you will get random weird faults. Leaking battery acid will corrode the ground lug.
thanks guys it was the negative battery terminal ground wire
Man i guess i should've searched, i'm gonna try this later today after i get up(3rd shifter here)
found this and figured it wasn't good for there to be an exposed section of wire so i bought a new ground cable and replaced this one, still has the same problem though and now I GET "error" on the odometer sometimes as well??
The exposed section would not matter because it goes to ground anyway. The thing to look out for is a proper connection to ground at that point. If you follow the cable from that ground point you will see that the other end goes to the engine ground. Have you checked that?
Both ground points are exposed to road spray and corrode easily. I put petroleum jelly on them to protect them.
yeah they were both fine but i still kept the replacement cable on
hey guys yea this is the second time i have replaced that cable, what i ended up doin this last time was
1. take the battery out and disconnect the cables
2. I didnt have the bolt anymore, so i took a drill and drilled it out to fit a bolt and nut i had
3. take wire brush or battery terminal cleaner brush and clean the top and bottom of the metal plate around where the bolt goes
4. i put my wire down thru the hole and wrapped it around the bolt underneath so its strapped to metal under the head of the bolt in the hole where the bolt goes and then tightened the nut over it so it is held to the bottom of the plate,
make sure u clean the plate the battery sits on good so its chrome looking for a better ground, i still havent had any problems.
hey another thing u can do is hook a switch up to it inside the car so u can make the dash scew up when u want to.just by cutting power to the ground....i got pulled over for speeding twice while mine was screwing up first time it was b/c i was speeding it but only 10 over and not in town anyways when the cop came up to give me a ticket or what not i told him i was sorry and showed him how all my lights were on and my RPMS Speedometer temp gauge and fuel were at zero and my odometer said error he said oh try to get that fixed and slow down a bit i was on my way home from work at 1 in the morning well the second time was during the day again about 10-12 mph over and i got pulled over this time when the guy got out of his car to come talk to me i turned my ligths on and off a couple times which caused everything to go screwy so by the time he got to my window the odometer said error again and everything was jacked up he let me off too.....im guessin this only works as long as u arent like seriously rompin on it but i am lookin into hookin a switch under the dash for this ...oh my friend gave me a radar detector when i told him lol
did your radio cut in and out too? When my radio shuts off it has an alarm that beeps. Its almost as if the car is telling itself that i've turned off the car?
My 02 cavalier did that about a week after I bought it.. Just driving along, then all my gauges went dead, and the odometer read 'error'.. They had to replace the bcm, ecm, and the console.. They said something shorted out to cause it.. Very odd.
Red 2005 Saturn Ion-3 Coupe
Burgundy 2006 Saturn Ion - My winter beater
ok i just tried sandin the ground hole on the battery plate and that didn't work. Sometime i'll have my buddy with his laptop and diagnostic software look up what's wrong hopefully that'll yield some results
