New used car: Electrical Nightmare

[1HGCG2]

Ahh, buying a used car from an 18-year-old has its advantages. Haggling the price using your superior knowledge of Hondas, for one. But it also has its disadvantages.

When I bought this car a week ago I knew I was in for a hard time. I'm good at electrical problems, and I know a LOT about electronics, so it was worth it for me to be spending less on a car with more problems. But kids these days, they will buy just about anything off the internet and bolt it to their cars.

When i had paid for it and began driving home, the only problems I had found were a broken wheel sensor wire (ABS and TCS lights) and engine whine thru the speakers (of which only the rears seemed to work). Not a problem I thought. An afternoon and these are fixed.

As I'm driving, my cluster lights just.. go out. My headlights also flipped from lowbeams to DRL. My tails and license plate lights are off. No amount of flipping switches will help. After a couple days of tearing through the electrical system I found the following problems:

1. Aftermarket headunit improperly attached to vehicle lighting system (infamous orange wire mistake)
2. Aftermarket halo projectors improperly installed (2.5V LEDs connected directly to headlights in parallel, H1 halogen conversion by wrapping wires in tape, and cutoff shroud tumbling around loose inside headlight)
3. Right headlight bulb connector loose, wire melted and shorting to chassis
4. Aftermarket alarm/starter module poorly installed (no bypass = no start function but still attached, entire module done with tape and no soldering)

I still have to replace a couple fuses and bulbs, but the problems are mostly fixed. The head unit is fried, so I will be looking for a new one. The alarm/starter module is useless, so I will be replacing that too.

Total cost of the vehicle not including repairs I had to make:
$4200 + $100 annual registration + $240 annual insurance

Total cost of repairs to date:
$10 haynes manual
$5 fuse kit

Projected near-future costs:
$100 headlight bulbs
$150 sony bluetooth-enabled head unit
$160 2-way alarm/starter with bluetooth and LCD remote

Lesson: When doing aftermarket crap to your car, please, please, please do it PROPERLY

I think I'm still ahead so far.. if only it weren't snowing!!

 

[talontsiawd]

I am just happy that most cars have factory alarms now. Back in the day, that was a nightmare on all of our used cars, even shops installed them poorly. Obviously you had to deal with this but, man, I don't know how many times we were jumping each others cars because the alarm was going off forever.

 

[02accordcoupe]

How many miles does it have?

 

[1HGCG2]

253,000 km (157,200 miles)

I cut out the alarm module (one of those generic AS-4040 modules) and the car still started, meaning the modules starter kill wasn't wired properly anyway. Currently the factory system is doing its job properly. Eventually I will put in a DSE 2-way FM system with LCD remote (and maybe a bluetooth mod so I can program it from my phone!)

I've rewired pretty much the entire interior, solving a lot of 'popping fuse' problems. I'm hoping to completely eliminate the multiplex module (by looking at the wiring diagrams, the car can probably function just fine without it with some simple wiring bypasses)

Today I'm working on installing a new head unit, the existing one is fried to a crisp and doesn't work properly (one of those double-din touchscreen units from china that sound awful, replacing with a newer pioneer single-din stereo)

And now I have a new problem, my door lock/unlock switches dont work if the car is off, and when you open the door the door light comes on but the courtesy light doesnt, unless the car is on, and the cluster and climate controls reset when the car is off. i think its a problem with the courtesy timer.

[edit] I also had to replace the rear pads and rotors. the previous owner purchased the parts and left them in the trunk as he had not the proper tools to do the installation. it took me an hour to do both sides, and now I get MUCH better gas mileage due to the fact that the calipers are no longer siezed to the rotors. there was lots of pad left on the outside, but zero friction material left on inside pads, and the metal backing plate was chewing through the rotor, as you can plainly see:

 

[kn0x47]

dang yall have cheap car insurance. mines twice that

 

[02accordcoupe]

That's one of the worst rotors I have ever seen. WOW. I hope you are able to make this a car worth driving and don't get too sunk in it.

 

[1HGCG2]

The car is in great shape now. I changed the head unit and all the rotors and pads, and its riding smooth. Only critical problem now is the passenger side muliplex unit which is now totally fried. Symptoms i'm currently experiencing are as follows:

-Cannot control passenger window from driver door, passenger door control works fine
-Clock wont come on
-Upon starting vehicle, cluster does full reset, and auto climate control defaults off.
-Door lock/unlock switch only works with key in Run position
-ceiling light doesnt come on when door open
-radio wont turn on in ACC

Rather than look for a multiplex unit, i'm going to rewire/delete/make my own

 

[1HGCG2]

Sorry to bump my own post but the majority of the problems in my previous post have now been solved. It turns out the clock/backup fuse was LOOSE (and i swear I checked it a hundred times and it wasn't popped, leading to sooooo much frustration) causing the passenger mutiplex unit to stay off. I bent the blades a tiny bit and now it makes a good connection, everything is running fine.

The only problem I have left is my DRL light stays on when my headlights are off, and my LEDs dont light up. I suspect the DRL module

 

[Brad2274]

good luck with all the wiring, is the alarm youre taking out any good? and i remember the brakes we did on a cherokee, one rotor was 1/2" thick and the other was 1/8" thick, and she wondered why her jeep wasnt braking well on one side hahah

 

[1HGCG2]

The alarm I cut out was an older AS-4040 module. You know, with the 2-button generic remote and the very ugly dipole antenna with a range of about 10 feet. Interestingly enough it had a transponder with a blank (but programmed) master key hidden inside the module. Combined with the fact that the active starter kill relay was improperly wired, I successfully started the car by crossing two wires. When I cut the module out, I was still able to start the car with the key before actually reattaching anything. Freaky!! Took quite a bit of wiring to get it back to stock with the factory immobilizer working.