sjpbug

Hey guys I need some help and was wondering if you guys can help me out

In case you want to get straight to the point and not read the story...
Is it possible for a loose ground, such as where the headlight/ground cable and the car frame meet, to take out the electrical system?

I hit a huge pothole and the impact broke the top part of my passenger side headlight where it mounts to the side panel, leaving a hole size of a quarter. I got tons of condensation so I decided to fix it with JB weld and painted my housing black while doing so.

Friday. Okay here is the part I think I screwed up after I put the headlight housing together. While I was putting the headlight back onto the car, I forgot to tighten the side bolt that grounds the headlight system due to the weak, glued top mount. Everything worked well, perfect on/off, driving no problem.

Next day, Saturday, my car didn't start... Weird.. I jump started and it worked fine for about 2 hours on/off. And the third time turning on my car, it had trouble starting. Lights would start to flicker, and at low speeds the electric steering will go on/off. Also, my Valentine One radar detector goes off/on every second while in low speeds and many times when I hit a bump it would go on/off along with a pause in my radio and the Valentine One is connected to my rear view mirror and shuts on/off wit the engine. I came home and I found that the screw was loose and tightened it. And I think the bumps on the road made the passenger side fender and the headlight ground to keep losing and gaining contact and I think that just did something to my electrical system.

The next day, Sunday, the car didn't die overnight and it started but the startup sounded weak halfway, just like Saturday. The car was doing much better today, but I realized on the way back home, the voltage would keep dropping one bar below the middle every 10-15 min and my radar detector every few min along with my music. I stopped by Autozone and they said that my battery is at like 10.5 volts but didn't have time to do a full test.

I'm hoping that it is just a battery problem or fuse problem but will a fuse problem cause this kind of problem? Maybe the starter fuse or accessories fuse or something? Usually a bad fuse, from my experience, the equipment would not even work..

Is it possible that this shorted my alternator somehow? The alternator is charging the battery but it might be not doing a great job? Because at low rpm/speed some accessories would flicker... but it might be the battery? So Im guessing possibly the voltage regulator in the alternator not giving enough voltage when required?

But if it caused my battery to die... why would my car still start over and over again every time, but a weak start.

I'm thinking about taking it to the dealer but I'm wondering if any experts here have some tips or if something like this happened to them. I didn't really find anything in this forums regarding this, cause maybe I'm the only stupid one that forgot to tighten that bolt..

ISFpat

iTrader: (10)

wtf.. cliff notes please.

A loose ground should only blow the fuse.. not take out the whole electrical system.

sjpbug

My bad. There were just a lot of symptoms. Yea I'm about to check my fuses right now to see if they are okay and then my alternator.

sjpbug

I'm starting to think it's the alternator, if not the battery. Battery was at about 10.58 volts when car was off. And around 13.2.-13.6 when it was running. From the Auto zone tester, the voltage regulator failed 2/4 and the diodes failed 4/4 times. I'm guessing the constant on/off contact of the headlight ground and the chassis screwed around with other grounded things in the car, or maybe drawing too much amperage in the ungrounded headlight or to even other parts. Therefore, causing the alternator to fail and burn out its diodes?

I checked to see if the fuse strip was burnt but it seemed perfectly fine with no burns or cracks along the strip. Usually the component won't even work if the fuse is blown.

RCB

iTrader: (18)

What test did autozone do? Did they bench test the alt. or do a midtronics test in the car to check the alt. under different loads?

Is your battery tie down in place? Make sure the battery didn't hit the hood and make sure the leads are clean and tight.

If all that checks out try disconnecting the headlight and take the car for a ride(during the day) to see if that changes anything. IF (and I do mean if) the headlight is somehow causing an issue I would think it would have something to do with the low beam ballast. Unplugging it will take it out of the equation.

That must have been one big pothole!

sjpbug

They just did the standard test with the large handheld device that connects to the + and - terminals of the battery. No benchmark.

The battery is tied down in place and didn't hit the hood at all. The same day everything started to flicker, I checked and cleaned all the terminals and the problem still occurred.

I did make a run to go get some jack in the box at 1 am and disconnected the headlight and I think it's still pretty much the same, but I think I need to drive it around a bit more to see if things stabilize because battery voltage is low so more driving may help. When it is plugged in, the whole unit works but sometimes makes both of the HID's flicker while it's powering up.

Yea there are some really big potholes near Hollywood Blvd and the car's stiff suspension really makes it 10x worse.

I'm going to leave the headlight unplugged overnight to see what happens. Last time it was plugged in and the ground was loose, it drained my battery. And after i tightened it, the battery didn't drain but all the problems were still occurring.

Thanks for the tip! Hope it really isolates the problem!

ISFGEORGE

Check the wiring over on your drivers side headlight. That may have snagged loose as well.

sjpbug

Today with the headlights unplugged, i started the car, usual slow laggy start up since the loose ground situation. First 5 minutes, the voltage was actually +1 bar from the middle which is +1 above normal operating. Nothing happened first 30 minutes! I was like maybe it was the ballast! Great!

However after 30 minutes, my radar detector that is hardwired to rear view mirror started to flicker. :/ I turned on my left headlight and the voltage dropped -1 bar. I turned on the A/C too at max and the voltage kept moving up and down but it stabilized after a little bit. So I am guessing that it is not the headlight ballast and it has worked perfectly fine even after the situation.


Yea, I checked that and everywhere else and the battery. The thing is that I hit the pothole about a month ago and nothing happened except for the broken upper light mount. The problem started to occur after I put everything together and forgot to tighten that one stupid ground bolt.

Anyways, I'm taking it to Longo Lexus tomorrow and they are gonna test the alternator and stuff because there is nothing I can do on my end anymore. I just don't want to mess with the alternator or anything on the belt. Good thing I got my car covered under warranty until 125 k still got a loooong way to go.

Ryanmac

sjpbug, did you ever get this resolved?? I had almost the exact same thing happen to my passenger headlight; replaced it - side bracket was broken so it wasn't screwed back in correctly - and then battery draining 4-5 months later. Nothing else changed. I'm wondering if the ground wiggled free.

Then after Lexus replaced a bad battery 3 weeks ago, I've still been having parasitic drain. The dealer tested the battery and say it's fine. They found parasitic loss when the car is off and plan to start troubleshooting on Monday. They didn't sound very confident in a quick find, so I've been online all day looking for similar problems trying to save myself some money. Yours is the closest I've seen!

Hoping you got it fixed. Thanks.

sjpbug

Yea I got it resolved. Luckily, it was just a dead battery. They did run tests on the car for nearly a month to replicate the problem I was having with the car just losing power while driving or battery draining while the car is off. They weren't able to replicate the problem after they replaced the battery, and I haven't had any problems since then. It was there for a long time, but I at least got to drive around the CT200h and put 2500 miles on it.

Did they ever run tests on your alternator? or have you run a test on it? Might possibly be the voltage regulator? That's what I thought at first. Did you fix the broken side bracket that's causing the ground to get loose? I hope you find the problem that's causing the parasitic loss. I'm sure you're going through lots of stress because I've been through it, and it drove me crazy!

Ryanmac

I would assume they did test alternator, but I'll make sure of it. I am collecting a list of recommendations for them off of the forum. The headlight bracket / ground has not been fixed since I have to remove the bumper to do it... and I didn't even remember that there is a ground wire there until I read your post today.

thanks for the quick reply.

sjpbug

Removing the bumper is only a dozen bolts but its a pain.... I forgot to put that big foam thing in there from the problem last year, and I still didn't put it back in there lol.

Yea get that ground part of the headlight fixed. If that thing keeps rattling it might mess with your ground or other electrical parts. Get that checked asap! Lmk how everything works out!