What's wrong with my car?

Question

I have a chevy cavalier 2.2L engine. for the last couple of months my high beams are too low and my low beams don't turn on. and my radio is will only turn on when the car is in park or at a complete stop. I just replaced the battery and it's still doing this.

I had the trasmission replaced at same time all this happened before I had it replaced everything was fine but afterwards that's when the low beams and radio stopped working and the high beams were low

i had the alternator check it was fine. but when they tried to test the battery it didn't put out enough amps. but the starts just fine

Answer 1

If this all began when you had the transmission replaced, then 99.9% would point to something the mechanics did or did not do. The most common mistake that happens is; when the transmission was bolted up to the motor, some wires or wire was caught between the two, and mashed to the point of causing a short circuit. Second; a harness was taken apart to remove the transmission, and was not put back together all the way, resulting in all kinds of weird things to happen. Third; ground strap or straps were left loose or not attached back to the engine and/or the body.
If it is not related; turn on the radio, lights, or what ever don't work and shake some wires around with your hands to see if they go to working when you do this. Also; try the same thing with the dashboard. Grab the dash around the area of the steering wheel, and shake the dash to see if it goes to working. If it does, then the dash itself is not grounding properly. I have seen this before, and it has to do with the way the dash gets its ground to the fire wall. I ran a heavy gauge wire from the metal fire wall to some metal area on the dash, and secured it with screws. This resolved the problem. It is possible the alternator was shorted out or a power surge went back through the ground side, thus knocking out a diode in the alternator. A wiring harness caught between the engine and transmission would knock out the alternator. It will charge, but not enough to keep the battery charged up. It will work for a while but gets progressivly worse as time goes on. I hope I have been of some help to you, as I know how frustrating it can be to have something worked on and cause another problem. If you strike the hot cable to the battery, you will get an arc everytime, because it does that even on a good, normal working system. This is due to things such as the memory back up uses power all the time. Good Luck!!

Answer 2

Did you make sure that all of the ground straps were hooked back up when changing that transmission? These are braided-wires that hook from the engine or transmission to the body. These are responsible for giving the electrical accessories a good electrical path. A broken one of these will cause the issues you describe that are very frustrating to find any other cause. Check this out before you go swapping parts. Ground straps are cheap, batteries and alternators are not. Hope this helps.

Answer 3

Sounds like an electrical problem. Check your fuses. Did you recently replace the radio? If the radio was hooked up wrong it could do this (dimmer wire hooked into power). If all the fuses are fine and the radio was replaced check the alternator. It probably isn't that though, might be time to have it looked at.

Answer 4

I'm with musiclick on this one... first thing you should do is take it back to the place that put your trans in... you should have done this when you first noticed it. If you just paid them a lot of money to install a transmission for you, they are obligated to make sure that they did everything they were supposed to... and if it isn't related to what they did, they will still be able to tell you what it is and how they can fix it. I think that trying to diagnose it yourself considering the circumstances is a waste of your time... let the shop do it. Hope that helps!!

Answer 5

If your low beams don't turn on perhaps you need new headlight bulbs.
i had a problem with my turn signals sometimes not working. i replaced the negative terminal connecting the battery cable and most of my electrical problems were fixed. I also replaced some of the turn signal & brake light bulbs.
Did you have an alarm or other accessory other than from factory? perhaps installer screwed up your wiring

Answer 6

Best way to get the correct diagnosis is to take it to a Auto Electric shop and have them diagnose the issue. You have an electrical issue, so have the expert fix it. In the long run, it will save you a lot of trouble and probably money(maybe the car if you have a short and it could cause a fire). Probably will cost you $65 for the diagnosis and maybe will include the fix.

Answer 7

Take a flshlight and look around under the hood where the battery is. They unhooked the battery when they were working on your car and I'll bet there is a wire that fell off and they didn't see it when they hooked everything back up. Or you have a poor connection. but look around I'll bet you find a wire off.. It'll be a smaller wire than the thick black one and the thick red one.

Answer 8

I had strange electrical problems on a car once and it turned out to be a fuse. You may want to check your fuses first before getting the alternator checked.

Answer 9

either your altenator is gone, but it could be something as little at a bad ground on your battery, if your ground keeps coming off things like that can turn off on you. my battery wasnt charging, they tested my system and told me everything was fine, i changed the gound on the negative head, it was completly caroded, and it works perfectly now

Answer 10

you definately have a wiring short somewhere. shut everything off and close all the doors. then take the hot side of the battery . take the cable off and strike it against the post, see if you can get it to arc and if it does,. it tells you what i told you there is a shortage in it. and its pulling your battery down even though you have everything shut off.