How much damage

Ok anyone care to guess on how much damage I did to my vehicle?  It looked like I grazed a wire while drilling through my firewall.  Car would not start, no dash lights, no stereo.  I'm hoping its a couple of fuses or a relay only.

at least you didn't burn the car down

Did you disconnect the battery before working on it?



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Need more info than that to guess. I'd say anywhere between $.50 and $5000. What do I win if I'm right?

Seriously though, can you find the wire? If so replace it, trace it to whereever it goes, and start checkin' fuses.

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Nik
Jeeputer Progress
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Check it out.

What year and make of car and where did you drill thru?

Well I was not connecting anything yet.  I was running the power wire through the fire wall and down the side of the car and under the seat.  Then I was going to put the connectors on, after I did the ground.  I hit the wiring harness,  as I drilled through the fire wall.  Its really hard to see becuase its buired in the engine but I can see the insullation is damaged on one of the wire.  So I'm assuming the drill bit touched the wire itself.  The battery was still hooked up but the car was not on.  I looked through the owners manual and some of the things that were not working are not on the same fuses.  And I pulled the fuse out for the starter and it looked ok?  I'm assuming if it was blown it would be broken in the middle, or black or something.  The car would not even turn over it was just completly dead.  Radio would not power on.  No dash lights, but the headlights worked, the A/c system worked, turn signals worked, interior lights worked.  I'm hoping for the .50 end of the spectrum

2002 jeep liberty.  Could not go through the existing grommet.  drilled just to the right of it.  Thought I was clear of the wires but apparenlty not.  I hit one of the larger guage red wires.

Not good answers. At first with a lot of ignition swicthed stuff out I would look at the main ignition relay, but the starter not engaging is a bad sign. On a lot of newer cars a simple reset can help in these ground spike situations. Disconnect the battery for 10 minutes and see if it helps.

I already had it towed to a jeep dealer.  Is an ignition relay big $$$?  The dealer mentioned that maybe the starter switch blew?

These Jeeps have a lot of very sensitive electronics in them. Sounds like you hit the ECM wire harness. That may not be good at all. Cross your fingers.

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Nik
Jeeputer Progress
[|||||||||||-] 90%
Check it out.

Ignition relays is cheap, but the starter switch is not. Wait to get a quote from your dealer.

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Jeff
Velocity Custom Home Theater
Mobile Audio/Video Specialist
Morden, Manitoba CANADA

I am a little concerned at the moment.  Is this something they will hook up to on board diagnostic and it will tell them what the problem is or will they have to manually check all these things?

If I had not had the battery connected and hit that wire then reconnected what would have happened?  I'm assuming that I will have to tape this insulation up or am I going to have to patch a piece of wire where it was damaged?

Do you think its worth a shot to go over to the car dealer and disconnect the battery and see if the electrical system resets itself.    What are the chances that no damage was done.

Anything that's free is always worth a shot. Do it before the dealer gets his hands on it, if it works he'll claim he fixed it then by by bucks.

Before you reconnect the battery make sure you fix the wire or wires first. Otherwise you could cause more damage.

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How am I going to fix that wire.  Will i just electrical tape where the damaged insualtion is or am I going to have to cut that part out and splice another in?

If it is just the insulation that is messed up yes use electrical tape. If not then you will either have to splice it or replace it. But make sure that there is no other wires damaged.

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I don't think there is much damage.  I could only see the knicked insulation on the one wire.  But I guess that was enough to jack things up.  The dealer is telling me they might not look at the car until Monday.  The suspense is killing me.

I did this once to a Dodge Stratus and I accidentally stripped a wire and my wire stripper grounded out when I stripped the wire and a small spark was produced. WELL !! $ 700 later I had to replace the BCM because the defroster and the electric air selector wasn't working properly. Not to scare you, but just sharing a horror story about installs.

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Jeff
Velocity Custom Home Theater
Mobile Audio/Video Specialist
Morden, Manitoba CANADA

It appeared all the hvac ligts, turn signals etc stuff was working.  It seemed that only the ignition activavted things were not working. Dash, radio, ignition not working

Yup, the BCM controls the things that are still working. The ECM controls the things that aren't. It may just need to be reset. One would think there is some sort of protection circuit in there.

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Nik
Jeeputer Progress
[|||||||||||-] 90%
Check it out.

God I hope so.

Dealer just called.  Main ignition switch fuse blew $49 installed. ......ssscchhhwwwiinngggg

Yet another dealer raping!!! grrrrr That fuse probably cost $2 tops I accidently shorted out the main battery fuse once did almost the same thing... but come to find out it was just a blown 50 amp fuse... Try to remember LOOK EVERYWHERE for factory harnesses! and if anything like that happens again newer vehicles are FUSED UP THE WAZOO EVERYTHING HAS A FUSE! so make sure to check every possible fuse and do a continuity test because sometime the fuse will blow where you can't see it! But glad to see your problem was fixed just not glad to see the $49 bill... but its better than $490! or even worse!

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$49 is not worst case here. Glad you see you came out ok.

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Nik
Jeeputer Progress
[|||||||||||-] 90%
Check it out.

BoominRolla wrote:

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Yet another dealer raping!!! grrrrr That fuse probably cost $2 tops I accidently shorted out the main battery fuse once did almost the same thing... but come to find out it was just a blown 50 amp fuse... Try to remember LOOK EVERYWHERE for factory harnesses! and if anything like that happens again newer vehicles are FUSED UP THE WAZOO EVERYTHING HAS A FUSE! so make sure to check every possible fuse and do a continuity test because sometime the fuse will blow where you can't see it! But glad to see your problem was fixed just not glad to see the $49 bill... but its better than $490! or even worse!

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I don't know about you, but I like getting paid for my work.. so how about this?.. Fuse - $2. Cost to find out that fuse was blown and replace it $47. Or were you expecting the dealer mechanic to work for free?

Jim