Today I had a customer come in with no power steering. Here is the solution.
be careful when jump starting your HHR. Hook your positive cable to the positive post under the hood negative to bolt on strut tower. there is a black post on the other side of fuse box. this is not a negative post.

That post supplies power to the electric power steering, and the fuses go poof when they get jumped from another car.

Yup there was a TSB about it.
http://chevyhhr.net/forums/showthread.php?t=660
So far I have had to jump start my HHR once. I drained the battery listening to the radio while working on my car.

Today I had a customer come in with no power steering. Here is the solution.
be careful when jump starting your HHR. Hook your positive cable to the positive post under the hood negative to bolt on strut tower. there is a black post on the other side of fuse box. this is not a negative post.

That post supplies power to the electric power steering, and the fuses go poof when they get jumped from another car.
Great information!!! Thanks for sharing that with us. I did try and jump start my HHR with another car, but used the battery in the back just to be on the safe side...plus, I've never had a car that didn't have the battery up front. :lol:

yeah i have the TSB, but it was so large, i didn't want to post it, and Ive drained the battery more than once on other cars while working on them. One perk to my job, is i learn about all the problems with these cars from other peoples experiences.

i drained the battery from putting in the stereo an listening to it when i did the install. i did a jump from the rear to the battery. all i had to do was lift the bottom compartment and i was there.

charged it there too. worked great

Today I had a customer come in with no power steering. Here is the solution.
be careful when jump starting your HHR. Hook your positive cable to the positive post under the hood negative to bolt on strut tower. there is a black post on the other side of fuse box. this is not a negative post.

That post supplies power to the electric power steering, and the fuses go poof when they get jumped from another car.
Hey...thanks for that reminder.

Information is useful, especially if you're on a trip or have the back filled with gear......providing difficulty in reaching the battery itself (I think most of us go for "juice" right at the source). But, I think I'll start doing some things that GM suggests.

Again, thanks!!

I jumped mine from the front because it was more convenient at the time.

A question relating to this thread......

For those of you who have drained the battery for whatever reason: How long did it take before the battery died?

I drained my battery only once, when detailing it. Only having the radio on, it was less than an hour before quiting. Does this seem like a reasonable time?:confused:

Mine drained in less than an hour. I could tell because my subwoofer amp wasn't getting enough power. My radio would play until the bass hit, then it would cut out and start playing again. I think our battery and alternator combo is pretty weak.

Hey, I definitely am not a supporter of GM batteries but, I need to remind you (I've had my share of problems with them...and none with aftermarket replacements).....the battery in vehicles is designed to provide a lot of power at initial use...otherwords to provide juice for the start. It is not a deep cycle such as a marine trolling batter, that will go for a day on a slow drain. I'm told that GM, as well as other vehicle manufacturers, are designing batteries differently than several years ago...mainly because of the power requirement at initial start up.

Also, depending on the audio system installed in the vehicle, (mine is the 260(?) watt Pioneer) plus any additional added power requirements, you could be drawing a lot from a battery not designed for that type of use.

That is probably one of the reasons why, the last I heard, all the manufacturers have agreed on using 42 volts to power near future vehicles.

I know, it's my own fault. I need to add at least one yellow top but I've been lazy about it. I also have the 260 Watt Pioneer system but I added a 250 watt RMS/700 watt peak amp to drive my subwoofer.

I know, it's my own fault. I need to add at least one yellow top but I've been lazy about it. I also have the 260 Watt Pioneer system but I added a 250 watt RMS/700 watt peak amp to drive my subwoofer.
Wow Captain....

If I remember how to figure that correctly, thats about 41 amps....I think the battery should have lasted about a half hour.

Wow Captain....

If I remember how to figure that correctly, thats about 41 amps....I think the battery should have lasted about a half hour.

Seems about right. :lol: I know it was less than an hour but I wasn't paying attention to time. :smile:

Today I had a customer come in with no power steering. Here is the solution.
be careful when jump starting your HHR. Hook your positive cable to the positive post under the hood negative to bolt on strut tower. there is a black post on the other side of fuse box. this is not a negative post.

That post supplies power to the electric power steering, and the fuses go poof when they get jumped from another car.

Thanks for the info, it may very well help someone here someday.

mine drained in about 25 minutes, but I had several laptops running on the cig outlets and the stereo going the whole time. I also didn't go all the way dead. It wouldn't start right away but after I left it for about 15 minutes it would

Yesterday I ran my battery down... ( too much sittin in the car and listening to the radio at work... or, because i had left my GPS plugged in over the cold weekend and no driving, either way), I was at work at a welding shop when this happened, radio just went off... I tried to start the engine, nothing, but all lights on dash would come back on .. even the radio. One of the guys in the welding shop tried to boost jump me off with one of the Fork Lifts and a ratty set of jumper cables connected to the Front post under the hood... NO LUCK... I then took every thing out of the back... got access to the Battery, and tried to jump from there.... we actually had to keep the cables connected for about 10 minutes before we got enough to turn the engine over..... but after that all was fine... radio played, power steering, no problems since.....

:confused:The power steering goes out when Im driving but comes back on the next time the car is started.I had my hhr jumped back in august and everything was fine until 2 weeks ago when the power steering started shutting off while driving.