91BlkRS

everytime i start my car, three lights come on: infl rest, service engine and brake. sometimes my car starts without any problems, but other times it'll click once and then not make any noises. i've been told it's my battery and my starter. i know the battery's pretty low and i'm getting a new one this week, but what else should i do?

cg91ta

Does your Inf Rest light go out after the car starts? The light is supposed to come on to indicate it is working for a couple of seconds, and then go out.

Once the battery is changed you may still have a starter problem. My starter does this random click-no-start thing. It's the solenoid on the starter. I've elected to leave it for now until I have a couple of other things taken care of.

91BlkRS

well i changed my air filter, cuz it needed to be, and none of the lights are staying on. but what do i do about it doing that thing where it just clicks and doesn't start??????

cg91ta

I would get the starter off and have it tested. You would also want to check ALL your wires coming from you battery for corrosion and to make sure they are tight.

91BlkRS

thanx, i'll do that as soon as it stops friggin snowing.

cg91ta

Guess I won't complain about my A/C not working yesterday when it hit 83...

Heckler

(I hope this gets read.. I'm not sure if it will pop up as a new thread since I'm just replying?)

I think I've read through most of the prior posts concerning a new problem I'm going through. This thread seems to be the closest thing describing my problem....

Every once in awhile when I turn the key, when it hits the start position, something clicks (a relay/solenoid type click), but then one of 2 things happens:

1- The car goes click click click and then starts normally, and I have to reset all my stereo settings because it loses power and resets to default. (I figured this was important cause it means the battery is losing its circuit somewhere I think?)

2- After a single click, the car loses ALL electrical power, the lights go out, the dash indicators all go dead, even the headlights make a click noise... the effect is identical to disconnecting the battery.

(This almost always happens after the car has been sitting at least a couple hours, rarely ever if its only been off like 30 minutes)

I've been ignoring this problem for quite some time. If Case 2 happens, I can usually fix it by shaking the battery (weird huh? I assume its just a coincedence.) But today it took a turn for the worse... It did the little 3 click problem (Case 1) but the INFL REST light blinked 7 times then locked in this time. I assume the click click click may have fried a relay or something by bouncing the system voltage all around causing a surge somewhere.

Maybe its just a locked in fault I can clear by disconnecting the battery. Either way it didn't worry me, I can deal with a red light as easily as I can an intermittent starting problem. The issue is, when I went to show my girlfriend the problem by turning the car off then immediately back on, the car wouldn't start, it turned over just fine but wouldn't fire... eventually it started, but now its having trouble idling at random times... very strange.

My Tachometer also does this strange jump up thing whenever I accelerate (like if I rev from 1k to 2k RPM, the needle will bounce up to about 3.5 before it drops down to 2k as expected)

All these little gremlins make me think I have some kind of ground issue... My speakers also squeal proportional to RPMs. I hear bad grounds can cause that.

[The security light acts normal.]

Maybe my ignition switch is messed up. I didn't find any tests that applied to my problem since its intermittent and not VATS related.

Maybe I could use a new Battery? Mines old and crappy. I just don't know if a bad battery could cause this. On a side note, last time the Case 2 problem happened, the dash voltmeter was completely dead, barely off the bottom peg, but I checked battery voltage with a voltmeter and it was 12V?

Maybe a loose grounding wire or a ground on the Starter solenoid? I haven't checked this yet cause I'm not sure what to do.

I also have my subwoofer wired directly to the hot pole of my battery, which i know is a bad idea.. My brother installed it and I've been too lazy to do it up right. First thing I'm gonna try is disconnecting that entirely to ensure positive contact with that terminal. If that doesn't fix it, I don't know what I'm gonna do next, any suggestions?

Thanks

Heckler

I just disconnected the crappy Subwoofer connection, which involved disconnecting/reconnecting the battery. The INFL REST acts normal again, and it started, but since its only been off for about an hour, that doesn't mean much. But at least the INFL REST fault cleared, and it started. :P

thunderstick

sounds like you need to clean up all your battery and other connections - especially grounds...

Heckler

I just took it out for a drive, the Tach still jumps around, but everything else seems normal. I don't even know how the Tach works though, is it electrical? The speakers still squeal, but again, that could be unrelated. Can an old battery cause problems like this? I cleaned the battery terminals to a sparkle last week, none of the grounds though. but I did use my voltmeter to check resitances from various grounds, and they all seemed fine, but I may have done it wrong. I'll try cleaning all my grounds up next, hope it helps. It may turn out to be a loose wire on the starter tapping ground or something, that would make me feel dumb :P

Heckler

This morning it did the same thing... any suggestions or tests I can run? Especially grounds... I don't know how to check, or which components to check. Any help would be greatly appreciated Till I get a better idea, I'm gonna go play with the starter and see if I can find any loose wires or corrosion or anything..

91GTABird

Check your (Starter Enable Relay) or (Theft Deterent Relay). They are the same thing. One for camaro the other is for a bird. Just names, nothing different. Its located behind the drivers side kick panel. Heres a few pics.

91GTABird

To the left just under the "hood latch handle" nehind the kick panel.

Heckler

Sweet, what about it should I check though?

Heckler

I have a theory.. maybe someone could tell me if its possible..

The + Pole on the battery runs first to the starter motor, and from there to the rest of the electrical system correct? So if I had a loose wire, or an intrernal problem in the starter, any high current surges in the system could cause a voltage loss downstream of the bad connection... right?

Heckler

I've been reading about that relay, I'm assuming mines okay, since the Security light acts normal, and I can hear the starter solenoid click, it looks like on these wiring diagrams if the pass key decoder module isn't correct, the starter enable relay won't pickup, and neither the starter or the solenoid will get power right?