Hello Folks - Happy New Year!! Gah. Always great on long holiday weekends to not be able to call your mechanic.

Before I call AAA (*I'm a lazy female who won't go buy jumper cables- it's been a long shopping month, taking a break from stores) ----- anyone have the experience of water intrusion (passenger floor- probably from A pillar) affecting the battery or electrical?

I'm really hoping it's just a dead battery. Red dash light blinks and interior light flickered. I was hearing some faint ticking sound (tick per second) from the dash as if some electrical somethings were trying to click. I tried connecting One of those battery jumpers and nothing happened.

The car ignition doesn't even click ~ I have one red seat belt indicator on dash (*I think that's what it is). Otherwise dead as a doorknob.

I'm asking here just in case someone's had the same experience but it turned out their wires were fried? I'm hoping it's not the case here.

 

Wires don't generally fry, fuses go. You have a power supply issue, sort that out. If a battery is dead, like REALLY dead, it can cause a no-start issue even when jumping. In those cases you can get some luck if you charge it for a few hours before again trying to jump start. But its best to swap the battery with a new/decent one. You can grab a similar sized battery form something else if you have to for testing.

 

First step is drying everything out. Shop vac as much water as you can, pull up the trim on the door sill and use hair dryers to dry the foam and wiring channel.

Water there is either the a pillar, sunroof drain or windshield cowl.

I'd bet on the cowl. Water from there will pour into the back of your central junction box which can fry the car.

 

Hi -

Amazingly, after getting worried when the small jump thing didn't work, after attaching jumper cables, I grounded the one cable and it didn't fire up ~ was feeling dashed, but THEN I attached the negative cable onto the battery and Voila!! The interior lights went on and I knew she'd fire up, which she did!! Easily. I had a scare. It was the battery, a newish battery amazingly. So I made it out to Costco (on NYE afternoon) and put in an Interstate AGM. Mind you I had minutes to make it to a garage to put it in for me. All this from being outside in the cold at 11pm the previous day. I replaced the battery because I have another LR3 and that one never failed to start like this one, so I switched out that battery. Maybe use it as a 2nd battery under the bonnet? I have no idea how that works.. Or get a better battery as a second.

Sounds simple but on these things it's harrowing and nerve wracking- the fear that you've fried your baby (*all of the wiring under the rug and the weird things so vulnerable beneath the cowl).

Thanks for your replies, and thx being out here, forum!!