Last night I was leaving from the grocery store, I turn on the car but the starter, atleast thats what It sounded like from the ticking, wouldnt shut off. It kept doing it until all the lights on my dash came on . Finally after about 8 to 10 minutes my battery light came on and she died. I popped the hood and notice smoke coming from the bottom of the engine bay. I know something fried down there because I had a weird burning metal smell. I checked fuses also so see if anything was blown but they were'nt. The real b**ch is that my warranty just ran out 1k miles ago. Ive had every schedule maintenance done and oil changes every 5k miles. Has anyone else had this problem? If so what caused it and how much was it to fix?

 

i had a similar issue happen 2 me at it was the battery terminals. i took them off and cleaned th termianals real good and it turned right on, try that. that soud u mention i heard too, and i thought it was a starter or alternator but it was just the terminals. i hope u can figure it out withut much money required...

 

sounds to me you fried your starter solenoid.. you should have disconnected the battery when you heard the non stop clicking noise for it was stuck in the engage position and now it probably overheated and burned


sorry to hear about it , get your dealer to fix it under good faith , thats a term they use to cover small warranty issues for a good consistant customer not to exceed 1k... if you have spent good money there for reg svcing then now is the time for them to step up to the plate


good luck on this

 

Im taking it in right now to have it looked at. Thanks for the replies I'll let you guys know the diagnosis when I get back.

 

remember to specifically ask for a good faith warranty repair if they want to retain your business


good luck

 

Blue looks like you may be right. The serviceman just called me back after dropping the car off and said my battery and the cable were corroded. But hes still going to do a full diagnosis and call me back.

 

Im afraid your right also lex my starter was fried. They also had to replace the battery connector. The total came up to $792 but the guy gave me 50% offf so I only paid 4. Im not sure to be happy or bummed.

 

wow. well i guess u should b happy i guess, u can get in the car now with confidence it will turn on. when i had my issue i went and bought new quality chrome battery terminals. u should probably do the same, either chrome or gold terminals 4 better connection.. here r mine. they were like 30.00 bucks i think from circut city...

 

I'll look into it today. I have an X5 projector retrofit on a 2nd set of headlights im afraid of hooking up until I know that wont happen again. Well lexus serivce replaced everything so I guess I shouldnt worry, but if my ballasts were connected at the time I would have lost everything due to the fact my wiring harness has to go on the battery.