HI.. I bought a 99 Diamante with about 70k miles on it 8 months ago.

It originally i found after buying it was a salvage car from an accident in KS.. I am in MN.. UNfortunately in MN you can clear titles.. Lucky for me :(

Below are the series of events..


1. When i bought the car the factory stereo did not work... so I had best buy put in an aftermarket CD player..

2. About a couple months ago i noticed I would unlcok my car doors from the outside remote.. sit there for a few minutes and it would just lock itself again.. no doors opening or anything.. this happend on occasion.. it would just lock itself.

3.
Approximately a month ago the CD player went out for about a day ... turned back on for about another day then turned permenantly off.

4. A friend removed my CD player for me to bring it back to the store. At the same time he hooked up my stereo system much more professionally then it had already been done.. I had a 12 inch subwoofer in the car. he also instead of having the power wire go thru the door drilled a hole in the fire wall to my battery... Still all was fine

5. About 2 weeks later I got a new deck from a friend and attempted to install it. At the same time we were going to put two new front speakers in since mine were blown. After trying to get the deck to work and testing on two other working decks we found there was a lack of power to the stereo.. only getting 0,3 - 5volts of power instead of the 12 volts we should.. Enough to light up the red light on the deck but not power up the face.....

6. The next day at lunch i messed with the fuses..and looked around the car.. Not sure what prompted these additional issues but i noticed some new problems

- The remote no longer worked
- Once key was turned off, you could not use the power locks..
- The power mirors did not work at all
- The reading lights didnt work (but sunroof and sunroof lights did)
- The visor mirror lights didnt work
- Floor lights didnt work
- Car didnt recognize the doors being open.. no ding no floorboard light and no dash light
- the center clock light didnt work any longer
- wipers only work at one speed.. 2 and 3 are both regular speed. intermittant does not work. as well as the mist and wipe doenst work.

HOWEVER WHAT WORKS>>>.. the air works, the dash lights work, it drives, the exterior lights work, blinkers work, and the locks work when the key is in the ignition "on". the cigarette ashtray light and the lighter all work.

I dont know if it was coincidental with the stereo or the speaker wiring.. The radio did go out before ANYTHING was tampered with.. the other things went out afterwords.... Thus far Ive checked all the fuses.. and are all good.

HERE ARE THE IDEAS PEOPLE HAVE GIVEN ME FOR POSSIBILITIES.....

- BAd Ground.. or undone ground (perhaps knocked aside by stereo isntallation
- Short in wiring
- Secruity system going out
- Computer issue
- Bad Relays

ANY HELP Would be greatly appreciated.. Im anticipating if this is worth fixing or just riding into the ground... Being that it is salvage i do not want to put more money into it then it would be worth.

THANKS!

Lindsey
Lrevier@gmail.com

Sounds like an electrical fault for sure, I would have the battery and alternator tested also...What type of salvage was it? Was the car in a bad front end collision or flooded?

I havernt posted up electrical diagnosis yet for these years but, i kno them pretty well in and out wiring etc.

As for the alarm , when yu unlock the door using the remote and after a few min it locks back. That wut its spossed to do. If yu unlock the doors with the remote and do not open the doors within a minute or 2 , the alarm locks the doors back to prevent theft or illegal entry. Its a factory setting.

As for the the electrical issue , the vehicle must have been hit on wut is the drivers side on the USA model.

There are the main fuse and relay junction and main power wire harness.Most coming frum this junction to inside the car are retained power for inside components. It seems that is wut is happaning. The wiring harness that may be crimped and broken and may need repairing.

I believe it was a front end collision. it may have been the drivers side. From the record books it happend several years back. Im not sure if the vehicle had water damage.. Some odd things on the vehicle make me think it coudl have..
It doesnt appear that they did TOP A work on putting it all together again as some things are just weird in the car..

A couple questions... could this start happening years later? where faults just start showing.. could the other things i did have made this progress?

I know where the main fuse box is.. should i check the relays as well? is tehre anything else that I should check?



Im bringing it in this week or next with my uncle to have it looked at.. Im hoping it is just the wiring.. The problem has completely shut things off.. not made it flicker

Would this also be the issue with the power locks only working when the key is turned on? this seems odd to me as if it could be a security issues or computer..
Thoughts.

Thank you so much.

First things first , check the main power distribution box under the hood , and do a continuity test , also check the MAXI fuses . If yu come to find multiple fuses which are blown , this can definetly be due to a wiring issue within the inner fender panel , and yu will neeed to remove the fender liner and wheel and inspect the harness.

Most of these wires lead to the inside fuse panel and other junctioned connectors.

If the car was hit on the front drivers side, that's where most of the electrical components are. Fuse box housing, harness, fusible links etc.

Electrical issues are a headache to pinpoint but if you approach it systematically, you can get it done.

As for water damage..you can check a few areas for rust spots like under the carpeting, the lower engine bay, in the trunk under the spare tire.

Im not a Diamante expert yet but I hope to be one soon. So far my LS hasnt had any major issues yet. :P

Yeah , checking the wiring in frunt is the main thing to get started first. Things that have retained power (constant power supplied with ignition off) come frum the underhood power distribution/relay fuse panel. Things like the main constant power for the radio,central locking , aux power plug in , odometer trip memory , central locking, keyless entry etc. It comes in on the wiring harness that is within the upper portion of the fender shell and goes along to where it enters the cars cabin near the door hinges. Where it enters in the cabin it supplies power to the inside fuse panels, and breaks off also into other multi connectors supplying power to other items.

Certain wiring that supplies power can have breaks in then , frayed or shorted to the frame /expossed on teh inner side of the fender where damage could have likely occured. Ive had similar issues with this . people have gotten the car second hand not knowing of its history to where , after diagnosing and checking the fender areas to reveal that it has had accident to that area.

Example of one i had was the a/c system was not working , altho it was fully charged, and the headlamos were intermitten. Turns out there were frayed and broken wires in the fender well caused by the accident.

Thanks you guys for your feedback..

One thing i did check the regular fuses and they are all intact.. however i have not checked the big glass looking ones.. they were hard to pull out so i didnt. is there a way to check the relays too?

could it be a wiring issue if the fuses are good?

Did yu check the fuses for continuity? Yes sum of the maxi fuses are screw down and not push pull removable , with a little carefulness yu can "unsnap" the glass window and with a small pick , see if the inside element is loose, it may not be visibly broken by looking frum above , but it can break at the base.

After checking and making sure that all the fuses have continuity on both sides , yu can check inside the car , where the wiring harness enters . It will have a junction going to the inside fuse block , and about 3 other power junction multi connectors. Yu can check the inside fuse block for continuity, if there is not any main power coming in to the fuse block at all times , even with key off , yu will need to check the harness connections and the harness going back to the engine bay power junction and fuse block

We looked under the wheel well last night. It didnt show alot.. Just a big line of wires all in a black casing. They appeared to have been moved a little but i didnt see anything that would signify a kink or break. However i am unsure if i need to follow all the wires through the car and take the black wraping off to inspect them. Would I be able to unbolt the fuse box and pull it up to check the incoming connection to it? There is a metal plate below it so I do not have visibibity under the wheel well.

I did not have the opportunity to check the fuses.. for continuity. I do not have a continuity tester.. just one for the volts etc..

I have not had anything turn on and off. Everything is completely OFF. We disconnected the stereo system and the battery to reset and nothing.

How do you check relays?
What else should I do?

It sounds as if i Need to be checking with a continuity tester?

THANKS!!!

Underhood , in the fuse and relay panel , nearly every fuse there should have power even with key off. Yes yu will need a lighted continuity tester. If the wire harness shows sum sign of being adjusted or moved id check it out at either ends. yes the fuse panel can be unscrewed to move upward to view where the wires enter the fender

Had a friend check it out. Got everything working he said there were some loose wires.. the only thing that didnt have any power was the radio fuse... accidently grounded out the wires from the radio and everything all shut off agian.. then we checked the interior lighting fuse and it was blown so we replaced it.. once we did that only half ot he stuff turned back on.... the radio fuse now has a current. no idea what that had to do with it

now just my power mirrors, wipers and clock are having issues.. ? any idea what would make this bounce back like that...?

all the fuses in the main fuse block had power... but the one inside the car was unsure..

So everything is a go? If so happy that things got sorted out.

Yeah there are certain fuses that are labeled just by one thing that actually are tied in to other things. Most of these that are like that are retained power items that have power even with the ignition off.

As in models with digital trip odometer and mileage and luminesant back lighted instrument clusters (the instrument gauges are dar , but when the ignition is turned they light up to viewable status)

These all follow retained power. And the usual items that are tied together , are like the 12v main power for the radio (power on with key off for memory) the 12v retained memory power for the trip odometer (if the fuse is blown the trip odometer will reset at every ignition cycle ) the 12v aux power socket (some models did not have this , most 99 up models did and it was after the shifter near the cup holder/coin tray etc before the arm rest) and lastly the interior ambient lighting lamps (models with sunroof) or interior lighting module for non sunroof models.

Most of the fuses that on the interior fuse panel that retain power even with the ignition switch off , are linked with other items. As in the retained power for the central locking/BEM (body electronics module)

Thanks everyone ESPECIALLY KiT TeUnG 2549 for your help

After tearing apart the car and finding several loose wires.. we also realized one of them was grounding out and kept blowing fuses.. there was one under the dash and one in the main panel under the hood. Amazing to think that one fuse can affect so much!

The radio had a faulty ground as well.

You guys rock and saved me a boat load of money!

Nice, Nice. Glad to hear it. Good Work.