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Problems/Service/RepairsIf you have a problem with your HHR, want a tip on repairing or performing a particular service to you HHR here is the place to post!
Hey everyone, new member here. My dad has a 2006 HHR LT. His car has multiple issues. No crank no start, can't shift out of park, door locks do not work, his alarm would randomly go off but now doesn't work at all, ambient temp reads ----, and the blower motor doesn't turn on, but the HVAC cluster does light up. Now this may sound weird but all of these concerns happened all at one time. We did some maintenance on the car a couple months ago and everything was fine then, and one day he went out to the car and had all of these concerns. My scan tool is pretty basic so I can't see much, but there are no DTCs or communication codes in any module. I was able to power probe the starter relay and the car starts and runs for about 2 seconds.
Sounds like a dead battery has triggered the anti theft system. What is the voltage at the battery and under the red cover on the side of the underhood fuse block?
12.4 at the battery and 12.3 at the fuse block. He bought the battery a few months ago. Security light is not on either. In the past, when I've had theft issues with these cars, I would either have a theft light on or DTCs, but there are neither right now
That's pretty dead. Do you have a battery charger? Or you can take it to the auto parts store, where they'll charge it and then load test it for free. Once you get it running, take the car to the auto parts store so they can test the charging system, also free.
Certainly sounds like there is no power getting to a large section of the vehicle. I would turn the key on and then check the voltage at every fuse in both fuse boxes and see if a bunch of them are zero. If the head lights turn on and are bright, it suggests that sufficient battery power is getting to the front of the car. I don't know enough about the power distribution to guess where the problem might be but if one of the fuse blocks lost power you might see something like that.
The 4 bolts inside the under hood fuse box need to be King Kong tight.
New battery before or after the problem?
What about the fuse next to the battery? It powers the BCM.
Have the recalls been done? See the link in my sig.
Changed keys lately?
Fuse #8, #10, #25 and #18 on the BCM?
Has the butyl patch under the windshield cowl been fixed? Water intrusion from it plays havoc with the BCM and the blower.
That and loose bolts in the fuse block under the hood Crank those 4 , 7 mm bolts down tight! The red boot on the lower left of the photo is the positive battery cable from the battery and then to the starter the nut is a 13mm
I'm at his house now and just checked all of the above. Surface charge on the battery with my meter is 12.6 and 12.5 at the block up front. Put a test light across all fuses and all good. Lights don't dim when I turn the headlights on. I disconnected and reconnected fuse block connections and cleaned off the positive terminals under the hood. Both keys and nothing changes. Checked continuity at 6 and 14 and 60ohms. That doesn't rule out possible BCM but it at least shows the network is still intact.