Toyota Avalon 2002, no power at all.


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Old 09-08-17, 05:17 AM
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Question Toyota Avalon 2002, no power at all.

Last night I went to an event about an hour away from home through heavy rain all the way. When the event was done I went to leave. The keyless entry worked. I tried to start the car and nothing happened. No clicking, no dash lights, no interior lights. The keyless entry stopped working too. All power was totally gone.
Someone helped me try and jump start the car but that didn't do any good either. Even with the jumper cables all connected my car still had no power to anything. Someone else tried to help and connected his multimeter. My car's battery was good. It just seems that the power isn't getting into the system somewhere down the line.
I ended up leaving the car there, my wife had to come and get me. I'm going back later today to see if perhaps some connection was shorting out because of the heavy rain and long drive. Maybe having some time to dry will help.
Is there anything else I should check? Would any one fuse affect the total electrical system of the car?
 
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Old 09-08-17, 06:52 AM
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Unlikely that 1 fuse will kill power to everything, most Toyota's I've worked on did have a fuseable link near the battery that would kill the entire system. It's not very likely that the fuseable link blew though, unless a non fused wire dead shorted. More likely a bad connection somewhere.

I'd start by checking all battery, starter and ground connections. Keep an eye out for green connections chaffed wires. A green/white powdery corrosion is a sign of a bad connection.
 
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Old 09-12-17, 02:04 PM
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Most common issue would be corrosion on the terminals.

The fusable link blowing would shut everything down, but I have only ever heard of that happen through a wires crossed attempt at boosting the car. But it could happen, and it can mimic a dead battery condition. No single blown fuse other than this master fuse would cause everything to be dead.

A multimeter check is not enough to determine a battery is good. It is amps (load) not volts that do the job. My bet is something is shot within your battery, and sometimes that can make a boost ineffective. Or perhaps the boost was done without grounding properly, ie. just a bad boost. Would need to swap a good battery in to be sure. A boost on a dead battery might work if you hooked the jump up and let it run for say 20 minutes before trying to start.

If all of these things check out, you would be looking at the ignition switch as the next possible problem. Try on and offing your switch a few times, while connected to another battery for a boost and see if dash lights come on. Might be a worn out switch, not that uncommon.

If it ends up being the battery, and the battery was not very old, test the charging system to make sure it is not an alternator problem that gave rise to the battery discharge in the first instance.

But all of your story considered, I will place my bet on the battery.
 
 

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