1997 Saturn SL1 electrical problem

DAVID.SCHULZ

MEMBER
1997 SATURN SL1

Electrical problem
1997 Saturn SL1 4 cyl Two Wheel Drive Automatic 130k miles

I was wondering if anyone can help me out. My Saturn is having some type of electrical problem. I was driving at night 10/20/08 and when I turned on my brights the spedometer needle quickly drops way down and then goes back up, the light in my radio face kinda flickers and one time 10/24/08 when I turned on the brights the car kinda lunged forward with a klunk and my air bag light started blinking. I did walk out the other day 10/27/08 and she was dead lost radio stations, no head lights, no dome light not even an open door buzzer. She was dead. Drove to work, shut her off, tryied to start. Dead. Jumped at work drove to my mechanic. They jumped it in the morning put the battery on charge for a day and hadn't had a problem since, they had it the whole week of 10/27/08. Please HELP

1 Reply

IMPALASS

MECHANIC
3,112 POSTS

Hello

Well based off of what you are saying your battery is dying. So either your battery is no good and won't hold a charge or your alternator is not putting out as it should therefore not keeping your battery charged.

Poor electrical will affect the entire car. So until you get that figured out the other things become secondary.

My first suggestion is go to Auto Zone or O'Reilly's and for free they can pull the codes to the car. Most important. Once they check your codes, if they find something and you don't get it fixed and need to get back with us, please make sure you tell us exactly what the code was, number and all. Example, if the code was E0568 O2 Sensor bad. Then make sure you give us all of that. While there for free also they can bring their tester out and check your battery, alternator and starter. For you this is extremely important that they check all three while on the car.

Last, please look at your belt. A belt that is worn and even a tensioner that is worn will not properly rotate the alternator and provide proper electrical output.

Let us know what you find.