Miata Gremlin

[azoomm]

So, this ridiculous little car had a gremlin. We actually got lucky how we found it. I was down at the track, my daughter was at home. She was going to go hang out with a friend. She went out to start the car and nada - nothing - no lights, turning over, zilch. The good news was, she was at home and no one needed to be anywhere.

She had hooked it up to the jump box, and it wouldn't even get lights on the dash. That only happened after having it hooked up for about 10 minutes. So, she called me just to let me know someone else was driving - the car was at home disabled.

We pulled the battery and took it to Sears. It took them an hour to diagnose it on their computer, battery tested fine. That just had me thinking it was alternator. Poo.

My daughter had mentioned the radio stayed on the last time she was in the car. As in, stayed on when the key was out and in her hand. So, I got into the car just to see what it was doing. Turned it on, fired up fine. Turned it off and sure enough, the radio stayed lit and on. After 30-seconds the key light and others turned off as they should. But, the radio stayed on. In my frustration, I opened the glove box to get out the manual thinking maybe there was a switch we missed somewhere. When I closed the glove box, the radio turned of. My daughter and I just looked at each other... I did a Fonzie tap on the dash and the radio came back on. If that wasn't fun enough, it would just spontaneously turn itself on, it didn't need to be jostled to do it. I went out to the car in the morning and the radio was on with the clock at 2:26. So, it had been on for almost two and a half hours.

OK - so it's "just" a short!! YAY! I mean, Boo!!

I pulled out the radio and this is what I found:


That Yellow/Red/Black twist didn't appear that it should be there...


Um, where does it GO??!??!


Yup, that's right, it's not connected to anything. It looks like someone had installed something themselves and then just clipped it off and shoved it back behind the console:


And, upon closer inspection, it's just twisted and zip tied on...


Under the zip-tie/tape:


Let's make it better, shall we? The genius also broke off the tab to remove it from the back of the radio.


I just got in there, clipped them all off to clean them up. Then put some weatherproof connectors and shrunk them. From what I can tell, most of these radios short out anyway from condensation. So, I just broke out the connectors we use for the bikes and boats...


Battery is charged. Tested it out, so far - so good. What gets me, to not even install it right in the first place is one thing. But, to just clip off the wire and leave it dancing in the dash is another level of genius.