My son was driving home from work today went over a speed bump or something like that and all of a sudden the radio cut off and the car would cut off when you came to a stop. I found one fuse that wasn’t in tight and then drove it a bit and finally got it to idle without cutting off- but it still didn’t seem right. Now it is hit & miss on the idling. The radio which was installed by the Geek Squad is still not coming back on. I can’t figure out how the 2 problems are related. Any thoughts?
On many cars there is a junction point at the starter where many cables take off from the positive battery cable. Not sure if your car was designed this way, but this may have been damaged when he hit the speed bump. Or possibly a ground wire was torn off or pulled tight enough to break.
The positive battery terminal appears to have 2 cables coming out of it- I leads to the fuse box and I guess the other one goes to the starter- You can’t really see from the top side looking down. The lights work fine except for the interior lamps that are on the rear view mirror- Maybe a fuse blew that knocked out the radio and the lights? But that doesn’t explain why it is idling funny. The negative terminal only has one cable coming out of it and it appears to be healthy. Maybe I should have the charging system tested.
The radio issue apparently has been solved- A bad fuse. I haven’t found out about the interior light yet. The idling issue however is not solved- maybe it was a coincidence that it all seemed to happen at once. I have a hunch it may be some weird vacuum leak or something with the idle control valve.
Bad fuses are very rare. Fuses have a simple function. If too much current is flowing through it, they give their life to save a far more expensive part. That protected part may well draw too much current again.
You are exactly right- 2 fuses have blown again. I suspect something was wired incorrectly when the audio upgrade was done and too much current is going to the fuse box- We will take it back to the Geeks at Best Buy and let them know they need to fix the actual problem or give us our money back if they can’t get to the root of it.