crasen

A friend of mine has a 2000 RX 300 that will not start. When the key is turned it will not attempt to crank the engine, the starter will not even make a noise. I removed the starter relay from the engine compartment fuse panel ( purple relay labeled starter). I manually jumped the terminals on the panel bypassing the relay and it starts up as long as the key is in the run position as you would expect it to. When I measure voltage across the signal and ground terminals on the panel there is 9 volts present while the key is turned to the start position. I did test the relay itself off of battery voltage and there is an audible click along with continuity between the correct terminals on the relay when it is tripped. Does anyone know if this is typical and if there is a common failure causing low voltage to the starter relay? Or is there a chance 9 volts should be enough to trip this relay and it just so happens that 9 volts is no longer tripping the relay even though 12 volts works just fine?

salimshah

I have not seen this problem listed in this forum.

Salim

carguy07

Did you try grounding directly to the battery terminal? I would be curious to see what voltage you see with a good known ground. Just a hunch, but might be a bad chassis ground.

crasen

Yea I was thinking about that today, I did not measure the voltage against a known good ground so I am going to go tomorrrow and try doing that. I did find a wiring diagram so I will try to check a few things tomorrow. If I find out the problem I will post the fix to possibly help out the next person.

crasen

Well apparently what happened was the car paymment was only a few days late and the vehicle was disabled. They had never been late before so had idea to think about that. I assume this is an option from the factory.

carguy07

Not from any factory I know of. More like a buy here pay here lot option. At least you figured it out.

crasen

Yes it may have been an aftermarket installation, the loan wasn't with the actual car lot from what I understand, but the place the loan is through probably operates like one.