Needed a battery replacement so went to well-respected regional chain in town. In the process, they a blew a fuse for the multi-information display/radio/rear camera. They replaced it, but now the display fades intermittently, both irregularly (minutes) and level of fade.
I want to give them a chance to fix it, but it seems like it will be hard to figure out. Any suggestions?
Thanks in advance.
The fuse blew to protect the circuit. What else is on that circuit? Seems like an underlying problem that predated the battery change. Otherwise, the new fuse would fix the problem. It may be better diagnosed by someone else. The battery change may or may not have anything to do with it. Do you know what they did?
Thanks for replying. No, the display condition did not precede the battery change. After the battery was changed, I drove out of the lot and tried to turn on the radio. Didn’t work, so I went back to the shop. The tech stated that there are procedures to avoid arcing when the battery is changed and that he evidently had not done it right. After some effort, he found the fuse. At that point, everything on the display/radio/rear camera looked fine. Only since then do I see this intermittent fading.
As you say, I wonder if Honda would be better suited to fixing this. The car is due for service anyway, but I wanted to give the other shop a shot at it. It isn’t the end of the world, but I think of the tire shop every time the display fades.
Thanks again.
If you have not discussed this with who ever manages this chain store start there. See what they intend to do and try to get a written statement that the person replacing the battery made a mistake. If that does not solve the problem contact the corporate office .
I smell a rat. No arcing at the battery terminals should blow any of the fuses to equipment downstream. Connecting it backwards will. Also, most places install a battery saver prior to swapping the battery to avoid power interruptions that will trigger radio theft protection and lose all your presets. Maybe they hooked that up backwards or something but that is also hard to do. First thing I would do is make sure they inserted the replacement fuse correctly. Maybe it is misaligned and not making good contact with the receptacle terminals…
Not necessarily. Sometimes fuses are slower to blow than they should be, and some damage can be done before they cut the circuit.
Yeah I think what he did was cross the wires by mistake and that’s what blew the fuse. Based on experience with my CRT display in my Rivieras, I suspect he might have damaged the power supply for the system. So replacement is really the only solution. It’ll just get worse and worse until it fails sometime in the future. To the dealer though for a diagnosis. What is a reliable chain store anyway?
1 Like
I think that combination of words is a classic example of an oxymoron.
2 Likes
Yes. I expect that’s what you will have to do to get the display working correctly again. I don’t know why it occurred, or whether it is related to the battery change-out. More investigation would be required to make that determination, if such a thing were even possible. It would make sense imo to first just disconnect the battery and let the car sit overnight. It might work again upon reconnecting the battery the next AM and all the computers reset. Not likely, but worth a shot. Fixing the rear camera display will probably be quite expensive. It’s just the consequences of all the high-tech put in cars these days.