start and electrical

Asked by GuruCHPZ2 Feb 22, 2019 at 10:25 AM about the 2001 Lexus RX 300 FWD

Question type: Maintenance & Repair

My wife's Lexus would not start my son jump started it for her and he hooked
the battery cables up the wrong way and he said the horn went off and it
would crank but would not start . when i started looking at it i found 3 fuses
blown i replaced them . i took out the battery and had it tested and it tested
good. i installed the battery and it would not start but i could jump start it but i
have no dash lights not radio electric seats and windows do not work and it
wont come out of park and after it runs for a couple of minutes it dies know
once i jump start it again it will start.

1 Answer

101,575

There are fusible links between battery, starter, and alternator (locations vary between different makes of cars), these are part of the wire harness that have a built in fuse that will blow in cases of voltage spikes to protect other parts of the wire harness or computer modules. You can Google your make and model car for the location of any such links and see if yours have blown. A blown link could affect the alternator for instance, preventing it from charging battery, or it may cause system to work under voltage affecting modules. Most of the time however you get zero power to everything connected via that link. In your case you may also want to check relays, namely starter and starter enable relays and ignition relay. Just have to go through all those fuses, fusible links, and relays.

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