Saturn electrical issue

My Daughter has a 99 Saturn SW1. She has had a couple of instances where the car won’t start. When you the key in and turn it to start nothing, all the idiot lights come on but no clicking, whiring, nothing. What we have noticed when this occurs is that the clock face on the radio is lit up but blank and the power locks don’t work. everything else appears to work. We have cleaned up the battery connections, tried jump starting, replaced the module behind the key part of the lock. non of which have made a diff. but later in the day or the next day it will start and work just fine for weeks before it happens again.



Help Please.

It sure sounds like a bad connection. It could be a battary wire, terminal end, ground. There are a lot of areas for a bad connection exist. Unfortunately until it acts up, it might be hard to troubleshoot. You did the right thing with cleaning the battery connections, now find the rest of the major electrical connections and clean them. Did you remove the wires on the starter and clean them? How about both ends of both battary cables? There is obviously there is one connection somewhere you missed. If it’s getting a voltage drop, when the car won’t start, you should be able to feel it heat up. I found a bad battery terminal once when it burned my hand when I grabbed it.

Try some of the old tricks first. If its an automatic, slip the lever into Neutral instead of Park. It could be the switch. If manual, try stepping on the clutch rapidly a couple of times.