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Spent 2 days chasing a no-start on a 2004 Corolla, it was a $6 ground strap

Customer swore the battery was new from AutoZone in Fresno, and I believed him until I actually put a load tester on it. Turned out the negative cable was green inside the insulation where nobody could see it. Two days of testing relays for a cable I could've caught with a 30 second wiggle test, what's your dumbest 5 minute fix that ate a whole day?

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2 Comments

annahunt9d ago

Did you check the voltage drop on that ground strap before you swapped it, or just eyeball it? The thing that gets me is how a cable can look perfectly fine on the outside and be totally rotted inside, which means all your relay testing was never gonna find it anyway. Those hidden corrosion spots are why I started doing a voltage drop test on every ground first now, saves me from chasing my own tail for hours.

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kim_nelson9d ago

Voltage drop tests waste time when the strap's already off, just wiggle it and look for green.

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