Hello everyone! I've been working on restoring a 2006 HHR 2.2L that had been involved in a minor front end collision (previous owner rear ended a jacked up pickup truck and took out hood, fenders, bumper, grill, radiator, fan, and a/c condensor). Anyway, during the process a few problems popped up. The first was the new cooling fan would not turn on but I think that was a faulty ground. The second problem is every once and a while it just will not start. The starter solenoid does not click nor does the crank relay under the hood.

My attempt at fixing it was a new park/neutral switch because I noticed that when it will start, it will only crank in park and not in neutral. After that didn't work I had someone hold the key on and I started wiggling wires. When I started messing with the wires running between the positive battery cables on the fuse panel under hood, it started to crank and has not acted up since. This is also starting to make me wonder if the problem with the fan is related to this since the blue wire to the fan is also in this same bundle of wiring.

Anyone else had this problem and know what wire is broken or loose? I've also been searching for schematics of the wiring for the starter and everything that controls it, so I can start tracing wires lol.

Thanks in advance to anyone who replies. Really want to get the bugs worked out of this little car, it only has 66,000 miles on it and gets a lot better gas mileage than my Silverado. Rides a lot better too lol!

 

You may have some loose connections at the bottom of the fuse panel itself. I think I've read that 2006 had issues in that area and seeing as yours took a hit that may have loosened some of the connections.

 

X 2! And also make sure everything is seated in the under hood fuse/relay panel, they can work loose in everyday driving, so a shot to the nose could have knocked them loose too.

 

Thanks for the replies. Seems I'll be checking under the panel if the problems ever start up again.