Complete Electrical Failure

[daltxlonghorn]

99 GS300, bought it used.

All lights, power, etc is out! I was driving down the road and everything died, starting with the CD player, then all the lights in the dash went out, then the engine cut out. Thought it was the battery, but replaced it and nothing comes on (no power). I tried to check all the fuses and they seem ok.

I did notice when I place the cables on the battery, there are major sparks - short? could something be drawing so much current that it's causing this? but shouldn't that blow a fuse?

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

[KerryJ]

Alternator???

[dbgs400]

If your getting alot of arcing when you hook up the battery cable then yes there is something causing an extreme amount of current flow in the system. Do you have and know how to use a VOM meter. What I would do is remove all of the fuse's and check to see if they are all the correct amperage, then with ALL fuse's removed see if you get the arcing when you hook the battery cable back up. If you don't then hook up the meter to look at amps/current draw and reinsert the fuse's one at a time and see if one cause's current to jump up excessivley then start looking out from there on that ckt to see what's attached and how the wiring runs thru the car. Hope this helps some and gives you a place to start..

DB

[daltxlonghorn]

it ended up being the starter. somehow, the starter shorted. Thanks for the help!