No Electrical Power & Mystery Fuses in Battery Compartment

[Htownlawya]

Any updates of fixes from y’all? Yesterday while trying to enter accessory mode, had total loss of electrical power. Completely dead. 20 min later, manually open trunk. Power comes back, car starts right up. Wtf. Any particular connection I should focus on?

 

[EdP]

Any updates of fixes from y’all? Yesterday while trying to enter accessory mode, had total loss of electrical power. Completely dead. 20 min later, manually open trunk. Power comes back, car starts right up. Wtf. Any particular connection I should focus on?

I'd start with battery connections and ground. How old is the battery?

 

[FablesGenesis]

I'd start with battery connections and ground. How old is the battery?

So I have been dealing with intermittent power loses when I would turn off my car. There would be I spark sort-of sound and then no power. Knowing that the battery was in the trunk I opened it and upon trying to get the stuff out of the trunk to get to the battery I happened to hit the floor mat. This reestablished my power. It worked for a while and then got worse. It got to the point to where even if I hit the trunk bottom to get the power back, it would just shut back off when I tried to start the car. !!** FIX POSSIBLY HERE **!! I Found the if I giggled and slightly pulled up on the positive terminal casing I could start the car. SO THE PROBLEM I FOUND IS THIS! Where the casing sits on the battery to connect the terminal there is a small gap by design between the casing and the battery. This causes the terminal to sit at an angle very easily. You can tighten everything down completely and still have this issue. I know! I simply found a peice of padding that had fallen out of the bottom of my floor mat and wedged it in the gap to eliminate this space. I have not had one issue yest and it has been two weeks. It had gotten so bad that it would shut of everytime I would stop and try to turn off the car. One morning the power shut off on the highway cuising at like 80. Luckily it was early morning and Noone was by me. Like I said wedge something in between the terminal casing and top of battery. See if that works for you. It has worked so far for me. And yes I have back and forth to the dealership with issue and no solutions.

 

[FablesGenesis]

Any updates of fixes from y’all? Yesterday while trying to enter accessory mode, had total loss of electrical power. Completely dead. 20 min later, manually open trunk. Power comes back, car starts right up. Wtf. Any particular connection I should focus on?

So I have been dealing with intermittent power loses when I would turn off my car. There would be I spark sort-of sound and then no power. Knowing that the battery was in the trunk I opened it and upon trying to get the stuff out of the trunk to get to the battery I happened to hit the floor mat. This reestablished my power. It worked for a while and then got worse. It got to the point to where even if I hit the trunk bottom to get the power back, it would just shut back off when I tried to start the car. !!** FIX POSSIBLY HERE **!! I Found the if I giggled and slightly pulled up on the positive terminal casing I could start the car. SO THE PROBLEM I FOUND IS THIS! Where the casing sits on the battery to connect the terminal there is a small gap by design between the casing and the battery. This causes the terminal to sit at an angle very easily. You can tighten everything down completely and still have this issue. I know! I simply found a peice of padding that had fallen out of the bottom of my floor mat and wedged it in the gap to eliminate this space. I have not had one issue yest and it has been two weeks. It had gotten so bad that it would shut of everytime I would stop and try to turn off the car. One morning the power shut off on the highway cuising at like 80. Luckily it was early morning and Noone was by me. Like I said wedge something in between the terminal casing and top of battery. See if that works for you. It has worked so far for me. And yes I have back and forth to the dealership with issue and no solutions.

 

[Gunkk]

So I have been dealing with intermittent power loses when I would turn off my car. There would be I spark sort-of sound and then no power. Knowing that the battery was in the trunk I opened it and upon trying to get the stuff out of the trunk to get to the battery I happened to hit the floor mat. This reestablished my power. It worked for a while and then got worse. It got to the point to where even if I hit the trunk bottom to get the power back, it would just shut back off when I tried to start the car. !!** FIX POSSIBLY HERE **!! I Found the if I giggled and slightly pulled up on the positive terminal casing I could start the car. SO THE PROBLEM I FOUND IS THIS! Where the casing sits on the battery to connect the terminal there is a small gap by design between the casing and the battery. This causes the terminal to sit at an angle very easily. You can tighten everything down completely and still have this issue. I know! I simply found a peice of padding that had fallen out of the bottom of my floor mat and wedged it in the gap to eliminate this space. I have not had one issue yest and it has been two weeks. It had gotten so bad that it would shut of everytime I would stop and try to turn off the car. One morning the power shut off on the highway cuising at like 80. Luckily it was early morning and Noone was by me. Like I said wedge something in between the terminal casing and top of battery. See if that works for you. It has worked so far for me. And yes I have back and forth to the dealership with issue and no solutions.

Most fuse blocks contain rigid internal metal bus bars beneath and between the various connectors and fuse contacts. Vibration, flexing, and thermal stress over time obviously can cause fatigue. If the lack of support under the fuse block assembly is causing bending stress and strain in the block, then there is certainly an opportunity for fatigue induced failure of the internal circuitry. Full disclosure: I have not removed and opened the top-of-battery fuse block on my car to confirm this design, nor any internal elements that might be at risk of fatigue failure. Sitting in the trunk where water likes to drip and on top of the battery where there are lots of corrosives is probably the worst possible spot for the fuse block. Corrosion induced fatigue is a beast.

Thus, *if* there is an intermittent open somewhere in the assembly causing a no-crank/no-start/running-stall, then wedging it so that the strain-induced open becomes closed, it will only be a temporary (not permanent) fix.

Yes the design is most likely at fault, and yes inserting a support between top of battery and bottom of the fuse block assembly makes complete sense to reduce flexing/strain/fatigue. But only after the faulty circuit/fuse/bus-bar/fuse-block is repaired/replaced.

Most dealer service departments are completely incompetent at diagnosing intermittent electrical faults. They get paid and make most of their profits by firing parts cannons, not diagnosing difficult problems.

On the other hand, most independent professional automotive electricians are quite capable of correctly diagnosing and correcting intermittent faults, especially if you tell them that it happens when you don't wedge the block and doesn't happen when you do.

 

[Gunkk]

Any updates of fixes from y’all? Yesterday while trying to enter accessory mode, had total loss of electrical power. Completely dead. 20 min later, manually open trunk. Power comes back, car starts right up. Wtf. Any particular connection I should focus on?

Presuming this is not a simple case of dirty or loose battery terminals....

Running the car will heat up the battery and the fuse block on top, which could cause a hairline break in a bus bar or loose connector to open up. Letting the car sit might cool it back down and close the electrical connection again.

Likely it's the same problem that FablesGenesis has (and many other forum posters have).

Find a reputable independent electrician and show him where you think the problem is. (S)He will find it and fix it.

 

[Wllm0724]

Hello,
I've searched the forums and did not find the answer. Maybe my experience will help someone else. I was having an intermittent loss of all electrical power-no entry, nothing. I replaced the battery last year and so I checked the connections (I'm a old electronics tech) and removed the paint from the chassis battery ground area and dabbed a bit of tune-up grease on the area before re-bolting the battery ground lug. Still happening.

I observed two fuses in the positive lead junction box on the battery, one a 50 and one a 10. The 50 A is a J-Case style. My clue was that if I open and shut the trunk manually, power would be restored. Aha! The fuse has a fracture in its element. I've seen that happen before in electronic equipment. I replaced the 50A and no problems for two weeks, including a 600 mile trip.

Now the question...what are these for? I've searched the web and the owners manual and I've found nothing at all about these fuses. Considering that it typically takes 200A to start a car, this can't be to protect anything downstream, yet, the car was stone dead.
Thanks in advance!

2012 Gennie sedan, 3.8, Tech Pkg

I got a 2011 sedan 4.6L same problems with it just cutting off and on even while driving and I shimmied a copper wire to keep it in because I believe in the lose connection so we’ll see

 

[ottawaal]

Had the same issue and the issue was in the battery connections. I have had no reoccurrence since I removed the connections to the battery and reinstalled with a small metal shim. This is the key as you said that the issue disappeared after you opened and closed the trunk lid.
Regards

 

[G-457166]

The issue is with the battery post. All after market battery comes for genesis has issue with battery post size and ends in loosing power due to loose connection. Get the oem they are not that expensive may be a 100 bugs max and that solves your issue.

It was a fix for me. Thank you

 

[Web Jeff]

I have been having this problem and it’s very dangerous as the car can lose all power suddenly & unexpectedly. I finally put the metal or lead shim over the positive cable and put it back on and it seem to solve the problem for several months. However, now I’m having the problem again. In the positive terminal connection box where there is a screw, that is apparently meant to tighten down the cable. It is impossibly loose and cannot be tightened due to its design with a square head design to fit into the underlying structure. Has anybody seen this, and found a fix for it? I don’t know if buying a whole new positive terminal connection box will solve the problem. I haven’t been to the dealer yet, but I’m expecting to have the same sort of responses that I’ve heard from others on this form regarding regarding their ability to figure this out .

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