Intermittent No Electric Power

2nd time this has happened.

Turn key and nothing happens, no lights, no dash power, nothing.

Turn the key a couple times and everything comes on but slowly. Clock has been reset.

Im guessing its the battery but the voltage is 12.7 resting and when it cranks over it starts quickly.

Ignition or relay issues?

 

Simple and easy, clean your battery connections first and see what happens

 

Checked and they look good, all the ground connections are clean as well.

 

How did you check them?

Visual isn't good enough.

Disconnect them, Clean then until shiny and reinstall making sure they are tight.

 

Check the battery cable connections at the battery and also in the fuse box.

It also sounds like a bad ignition switch. Turn the ignition key slowly through its positions and see if the power drops out. Sometimes you can take the electrical portion of the switch apart and look at the contacts for burned spots

 

Looking does nothing unless you have xray vision. You need something called a “battery brush”. Even the cheap crappy ones at any auto parts store will work.

If your positive terminal rubber cover thing is missing put a rag covering the positive terminal. Loosen & remove the negative terminal, repeat on the positive. Use the brush on the negative post and positive terminal first, then positive post and negative terminal. This helps keep the brush bristles from being smashed and less effective.

You could go a step further and use some noco corrosion prevention felt pads, or their spray on or brush on corrosion prevention stuff. Ive used several different brands, Noco seems to work very well.

If theres stuck on acid, nothing Ive found works better than plan ole coke-a-cola. Take the battery out, pour it in a little container put the container where the battery was, dunk the terminal, leave it.

Ive got to deal with this in the morning so I stopped for gas & bought a bottle of coke.

 

Jesus dude! WTF.

 

Ill try cleaning the terminals off, wouldnt hurt. Ive just never seen an issue like this with non oxidized or leaking terminals.

I was thinking ignition or relay because the issue goes away if I turn the key a few times. I just dont know which relay to start checking, Ill check the ignition switch with the key and see if that does anything.

Thanks for the ideas, keep em coming.

 

Customer vehicle.

 

Contacts all cleaned, ill wait and see if this pops up again.

I did notice that the voltage dropped to 10.5 during startup this morning so maybe the battery is having issues. Its about 3 years old but I would be a little upset if thats the problem since I spent the money on an odyssey battery.

 

10.5 and below used to be failing back when alternators charged to 14.7. Now I see them charge to 14.2, and dropping to 10.2 on a brand new vehicle. So now when I see 10.0 I get suspicious. Less than 9.5 I’m considering replacing.

 

That’s a good rule of thumb.
I was taught 9.75v or lower when cranking was “weak”.
Realistically, you need to do a timed draw and capacitance test to know the true state.

But like you, 10v and under, it’s time to test things.

(Unless you’re me. I procrastinate. I usually end up replacing it at the “click….click…click” test.

 

In school we were taught that dropping below 10v during crank was a bad battery, end of story. No need to test further

 

Good enough for me.
I didn't go to school.

I got burnt out restoring a 1979' TransAm in High School.
It was a daily driver, and continuous restoration.
My father was a mechanic for years at Goodyear/Free Service Tire.
I learned quick, I didn't enjoy working on cars. I just do it because I'm too cheap to pay someone else. That is, if I can do the job.
There's stuff I don't/can't do. I'll pay someone to do those.


I'd rather dig ditches and clear fence rows, than work on cars.

 

I work on cars for a job, but I'm certainly not a gear head. On weekends my hobbies are about as far away from cars as I can get. I don't do side work, I hate working on friends and family cars.

I happily overpaid for a brand new Tacoma from a dealer because I didn't want to have to worry about it breaking down. I just want it to start every time and not cause trouble.

After a week of wrenching on other people's cars for a job the absolute last thing I want to do is work on my own vehicles

 

I hear you on that. I always try to help people.
But I also want them to be involved in the "fixing" process.
That way, that don't call me the next time something breaks.

If I teach you how to do it.
I won't have to do it.

But it rarely works out that way.....
I'm kind of glad we can be semi-anonymous on here (internet)
I get enough calls from people asking me to look at their stuff, because someone I know told them about me.

I'm starting to , "Not know" about stuff. If you know what I mean?

 

Oh soooo true.

Friends and family just can’t seem to understand. You know how to do it, why won’t you do it for me for free??

 

To complete my thread jack. Here’s some pictures of that battery. Before, while cleaning & soaking in coke, after coated in corrosion prevention and corrosion prevention felt pads added. Last picture is my battery brushes.

 

I decided to track the alternator voltage as I was driving and it's going from 12.8 to 15 at times. Most of the time it's at 13.8 to 14.3.

Might be time for a new voltage regulator or alternator.

 

Regulator is built in to the alternator...