Car appears dead

Asked by GTO_JUDGE_70 Dec 14, 2008 at 12:07 PM about the 2004 Pontiac Grand Am GT

Question type: Maintenance & Repair

My wife's 2004 Grand-Am GT/SCT V6; 30K miles. Intermittently you get in the car turn the key and car appears dead. The radio works but NO lights on cluster gauge. Tap the horn with the key in the ACC position and the gauges light up and car will start. Replaced the battery, and ignition switch and it still does it but its intermittent. According to the dealer they cannot duplicate problem but their scanner read indicated it may be the ignition switch but it still does it.  Any ideas?

Thanks!

3 Answers
16,855

Adam answered 15 years ago

I'm not all that great with electrical, but from what you said my guess would be to look for a loose connection in the column, near or at the ignition switch. I say this because the tapping the horn might be causing it to gain connection, but then I'd expect the loose connection to act up when you start driving so I really don't know, but that's where I would start.

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Steven answered 15 years ago

Did you check the ground? It could be a bad cable also. Do you have light on the dash that reads "security" If so it could be the ignition swith in the dash. It happened to me with my 03 Grand Am GT. Very expensive repair about $600.00 I am not a mechanic jsut passing along my own experience. Good luck

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145

Bryan1269 answered 15 years ago

My 01 Grand Am SE had an ignition switch problem too, but the symptoms were very different. The repair was pretty expensive.

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