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Here's where it gets really weird. Is it possessed?

1K views 17 replies 16 participants last post by  rivalarrival 
#1 ·
OK I woke up this morning, jumped into my 2006 Jeep Rubicon (TJ Unlimited), turned the key and nothing. Totally dead. Yesterday it ran beautifully. Then as I attempted to start it again my gauges started goin NUTS, and I mean nuts, swinging madly, every last one of them. The lights were on, bright too, and I could tell my baby had juice. The lights were bright everywhere.

Here's where it gets really weird. Without the key in the ignition, I had stepped outside and was speaking with a neighbor who offered to give her a jump when I noticed a funny sound emanating from inside. I opened the door and saw the gauges swinging wildly and my CD player, well, it was attempting to load a CD (there's no CD's in the player). This is WITHOUT a key in the ignition, a foot on the brake, or any other interaction.

My neighbor and I set-up the jumper cables, I jumped in turned the key and it made absolutely no difference. The only thing I noticed was the sound was very unusual.

So is my baby possessed :devil: or is there another more reasonable explanation?
 
#4 ·
I vote possessed. :laugh:
 
#5 ·
I've seen shorts to ground (a hot wire chaffed and rubbed against the body) do that electrical gauge dance. This was on a GM diesel K5 (not a jeep) the glowplug wire broke before the 50A strap fuse. Truck was dead as a door nail 'til I fixed the wire.
 
#6 ·
My wife had a Nissan that would do that mostly after a rain. Even the volume on the stereo was stuck. It would go up, down or off.
I would take off the positve battery cable and lay on the ground cable for about a minute, go and hit the brake pedal in case there was anything still energized and then put the positive cable back on. It would do this about 3 times a year.

It may or may not work for you, but you have nothing to lose and it only takes 5 minutes to do.

Tell me if it helped.
If it doesn't, sorry for wasting your time.
 
#9 ·
#18 ·
Similar experience with an '05 Grand Am... The computers control everything, they kick on enough crap that the voltage drops too low, everything shuts down, but now the voltage is high enough that the computer can kick things back on, lather, rinse, repeat.

It's the same as the rapid clicks you can get from a starter solenoid when you try to start with a 3/4 dead battery.
 
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