Dano88ish

Hey guys...
Can someone plz tell me WTF is goin on with my '05 tC plz? So here's the deal... I let my brother borrow my car to get to and from work on my day off... He got there fine... On his way back to my place, The car just lost ALL power... I'm talkin headlights, instrument lights, EVERYTHIN! We popped the hood and checked connection to terminals and it was all good and tight... Long story short... I showed up in my wife's '13 tC to give Willis (My car's name lol) a jump... Connected cables and immediately got full power back to headlights, instrument lights, etc... But when I went to go start her... She turned over once then started clickin (Like she had a dead battery.) We left cables connected for like an hour tryin to start her up... Same result... She just wouldn't start... When we disconnected the cables the car had a little bit of power... Enough to make the headlights and instrument lights go KRAZY! Flickerin off and on over and over again... Can somebody... ANYBODY! Plz tell me what the heck is goin on? And plz tell me what I need to do to get her runnin again? Plz and Ty in advance!

bbsciontc

If I had to guess, probably a bad alternator.

Dano88ish

Well I figured that might be the case, but connected to jumpers cables... Would the car at least start and then die again once the cables are removed? Bein that the alternator isn't chargin the battery? I mean, she would turn over once and then nothin... 😞

Suly5

Same thing happened to me about 2 weeks ahí. It’s the alternator. Good luck hope everything goes well.

Dano88ish

So after messin around with a number of things... It ended up bein the battery ground cable that grounds to the body from the negative on the battery... I fixed it myself in about an hour... You have to remove both positive and negative cables from battery... Remove battery... Remove the plate the battery sits on... There will be a smaller cable off of the negative grounded to the frame under the battery... Remove that... And the other thicker cable from the negative grounds to the engine behind the starter... I removed the starter to remove the ground bolt... I replaced the ground cable that goes from the negative to the frame under the battery, and reused the existin thicker cable that grounded to the engine... Both of the ground cables were super corroded down to the core, so Ima need to replace the thicker one ASAP! Anyway, I put everything back together, had power to the car and she started right up! I bought the ground cable from AutoZone for like $10.00... I recommend you get either the 15" long replacement cable or longer. I got the 15" one and it was barely just right... You might wanna get the longer one to have a little more slack to work with... I hope this helps out... I've read countless threads on this forum where people have had the same issue as us, but nobody ended up comin back and sayin what the issue actually was... Do me and all of us a favor and come back to let us know if that fixed the issue for you as well... Good Luck!

MR_LUV

Thank you!, Dano88ish for coming back and letting everyone know was the cause of the problem.

I wish more people do the same. Sharing information benefits everyone.


Moderator

Dano88ish

Not a problem brutha... I seen like 20-30 people say they had the same issue, but nobody came back to say what the issue ended up bein... So I figured I'd come back to share my results. And I agree, if everyone came back to say what the problem was, I think we'd all be master tC mechanics already... lol... Glad I was able to help the site. It's a great site to be a part of. I asked gjpjr84 in a personal message if there was a way the website could be updated to show past threads created and current threads that you are a part of, to the personal control center on the left side of the website as a quick link? I really think it would be a little more convenient and beneficial to everyone. Thanks for the recognition and I look forward to helpin out here as much as I can...

-Dano88ish