I have a 2008 HHR we bought for my son’s first car. Car has been running great since we purchased it. Can has sat for about a week and a half since the kids were doing school from home the last couple of weeks. I went to get in the car to move it today and the key fob would not unlock the car. I went in car and it would not crank ( not turning over), radio would not come on and door lock would not work. Decided to open the back to check battery and found the battery halfway underwater. Drained the water out and took a reading off the battery which showed 12.5 volts. There is some electric connection near the battery and a fuse that was under water. Any other members have same issue and might know what may be causing it not to crank?

 

The water shorted out the electrical system . Dry it out! And the battery is at near death, 12.4 volts is a dead battery.

 

While you're at it find that leak... That's some serious water.

 

x 2

 

So I have a short somewhere in system now, I am guessing it would be somewhere there near battery that was covered in water. On a good not after have at least 4” of rain during week I think I fixed the water leak. Any help on what I should look at around battery area would be appreciated.

 

All the connections in the area should be inspected and tested.

 

Once again: 12.5 volts is nearly dead battery! Try a jump start (hooked up correctly).

Did you check/replace the maxi-fuse?

 

No I have to replaced the maxi fuse, where is it located? Is that the red one near negative battery cable? I pulled it and don’t think that is blown. I check it with an ohm meter and it showed good.

 

That’s the one, now dry out and clean the negative connection, either recharge the battery or jumper cables to the battery, not under the hood terminals.

 

I stumbled across this thread when originally researching my issue as I had the exact same problem with standing water in the trunk compartment around the battery, the car wouldn't crank, and I was getting all kinds of error messages on the dash display when trying to jump start the HHR. Errors that I remember being displayed were "power steering", "engine disabled", etc. I wanted to share this info in retrospect now that I've fixed the issues incase it can help someone in the future. I've dedicated more time on these issues this week than I would have preferred.

After draining the water, I took the battery to the auto parts store and it tested good but the charge was depleted so they recharged it. It turns out that the red 50A maxifuse holder (with fuse inserted) had been knocked off its bracket and was laying on the floor next to the battery and had been underwater. The fuse holder is supposed to be clipped onto the same bracket as the negative battery terminal. If it was clipped in up there it wouldn't have been underwater. But being underwater, the metal fuse and fuse holder had completely corroded away and I'm shocked that this hadn't been an issue sooner until the car just wouldn't start. The metal blades in the fuse and connector were completely rusted away. But I went to an auto-salvage yard, clipped off a good maxifuse and holder with a wire pigtail, and installed it in place of mine. I used wire nuts to get it up and running but might redo with crimp on butt connectors in the future. I was concerned that the amount of standing water there was had shorted around the fuse and damaged something else. But after draining the water, installing the new maxifuse holder/fuse, and installing the charged battery the car started right up without issue.

Finding the water intrusion was a harder problem though. I did find that my rear window washer spray tube was notoriously cracked near the connection into the back of the spray nozzle part. There was evidence of previously dried blue wiper fluid leaking on the third tail light housing with one of the lights burnt out from direct spray. There was also dried blue wiper fluid streaks in the back of the plastic trim around the upper rear brake light. It looks like this section of tube behind the upper brake light gets enough UV or heat to degrade, become brittle, and crack. The length of tube that was behind the upper third brake light had small surface cracks, was brittle, and easily broken. Once the tube went through the cutout in the top of the liftgate, it was pliable, did not have visible surface cracks, and was not easily broken off when being moved around. I cut it off here and used a salvaged portion of tube and connector from the opposite end of the tube from under the headliner that I pulled from the salvage yard. All of the HHRs I looked at (sample size 3) at the salvage yard also had the same issue where the few exposed inches of tube near the washer nozzle was brittle with surface cracks but rest of the covered tube was pliable and in usable condition. Anyways, I repaired the tube with the spliced in section, it remedied this issue, but it turns out that this wasn't the main source of my water leak.

Another more significant leak that wasn't apparent until it rained again and I removed the liftgate interior trim. Once trim panel was removed there were noticeable streaks where significant water was entering from the 2 cutouts where the license plate light housing fits through. There was a small amount of water that also showed leak marks from the plastic retainer mounts for the screws that holds the license plate.

In my first attempt to seal, I removed that rear exterior trim that holds the liftgate handle sensor and the two license plate lights and added silicone around those cutouts on top of their foam gaskets and the fastener holes but it still leaked. In my second attempt, I added a bead of silicone around the top & side edges of the exterior trim and it is bone dry now after a decent rain.