Well i was driving my car and it just shut off. Well heres the funny thing....all my power is there i mean my headlights are bright all the interior lights come on and my keyless entry works but anything that needs the key like to roll up the windows or use the radio doesn't work. My radio shows the time but it won't turn on the radio. And all the lights that come on right before you start your car like the SES light etc. don't come on. It makes the sound like the keys in there but it doesn't work. I go to turn on my car and nothing happens at all...no sounds or anything. Now i think the problem is that i blew a relay under the hood and my reason for saying this is because i have my tranny fan to come on when the key is turned forward using the ign. relay. I haven't checked this yet because i'm at work but do you think this is the prob that i blew the relay. It's been in there for a while so i don't know if it finally took a toll on it. Is there anyway to check and see if a relay is bad or not? Any input appreciated....thanx.

 

TTT
I checked all the fuses and they are fine and my tranny cooler fan is not connected to my ignition. Any advice i'm lost

 

Time to dig under the dash.

There's a couple of rods on top of the steering column, one of them goes to the ignition switch, it sits on top with the terminals pointing over to the right. You can check that for proper operation. I'm guessing that your ignition switch or wiring is bad. Over time, the connection can get a little loose, and then resistance builds up, and things heat up and become worse. Try wiggling things around down there with the key in the run position and see if you can get any juice.

I don't even use my ignition switch anymore, I got tired of playing with the thing, so I made my own switchboard basically. When I took the stuff out the blue connector (the red power wire is the real culprit) was burnt and all the wires were extremely difficult to strip, it felt like the insulator had basically formed to the wires from overheating too many times.

There are of course other things it could be but this is the most likely by far. When you hear about people not being able to start their cars, then coming back later and it starts up fine it's often this. I was one of those people for a while, it sucks. You could go out and try again, sometimes everything under there cools down and it will work for a while again. - Also, running more stuff at once like AC and lights that put more load on the system will make it more likely to fail.

 

Yeah i have no idea....i'm going to go under the dash tomorrow and check it out. It happened but then my car started like 30 secs after and drove for a couple of mins and then it just died again and has the symptoms i said. So there is no cooling off period for me .....oh well i'm going to peek around and see what i can do....if not it's off to the shop for me

 

There is a guide for replacing the ignition switch on my Tech Page.

 

Shoebox i was hoping you would reply. Yes i read your tech page and what you say about the switch is exactly what happened to my car. I don't think i can do that so i'm going to have the shop do it because i think i will screw things up. Thank you very much again and to all of you that replied.