I just replaced the battery, oil, and added some coolant. As I'm driving down the 680 my speedo starts fritzing and then the instrument panel goes dim along with all the interior lights, blinkers shot, etc...

I made it home and the car was running fine on the freeway. It was also having a hard time getting power when I put the accelerator down. I got home and tried to start the car but got nothing. No starter clicking noise and the check engine light came on.

Any suggestions for places where I should start looking for possible problems?

 

maybe alternator? when you say the turn signals are shot. do you mean they don't work at all? or barely come on?

when you tried to start to car. are the lights all fine? turn signals work fine?

 

i agree, check alternator.. mine did this about 2 months ago

 

Yeah so I went to start it this morning expecting nothing to work and it decided to just start right up, no problems.

racingcrx, while driving I put the turn signals on and the instrument panel wasn't indicating anything (just black) same with the outside signals.

Alternator sounds like a possibility ohhhhh

 

check connections from battery to terminals, then terminals to wires

 

so when you have the signals on it doesn't work at all? on the cluster or the outside of the car?

pull the alternator and have it checked. Or if you can make it to a oreilly auto parts store have them take a look at it. they can check with a device when hooked up to the battery to see if the alternator is bad. this happened on a 90 accord I had. similar problems you are having now.

hope this helps. and keep us updated?

 

why don't you check the fuses and relays 1st.

 

Ok so I took in the alternator and it did pass, only problem was that it was getting low readings from the machine at Kragen (I guess they are O'Reilly now or something?)

Even so, the guy told me it probably had a month or 2 left in it. So I just purchased a new one and installed it. However, when I removed the connector that's attached with a screw/bolt, the damn cable snapped at the terminal connection.

Spent a little bit soldering a terminal to the cables and then reconnected it to the alternator (is there a better way to do this?) Took it out in traffic and let it sit/idle, drove around for a bit... seemed fine.

I'll do more testing tomorrow, but the new alternator seemed to help. I'm just more concerned with the somewhat corroded cables. Well, they didn't look corroded, but there was this crusty black stuff falling off of the cable when I opened it up. Probably just something to help protect the cables... I'm not sure.

Ninja edit: fuses looked fine btw. If the car would just not start all the time then I'd suspect a blow fuse, but the box was fine and this only happened while on the road/in traffic after appox 10 minutes or so when the alternator would be taking over (I found most of this out in the last day or so).