Battery replaced- now the dashboard lights up like a Christmas tree!

[BLH RS4TC 4040]

My '08 XR with 108K on it FINALLY needed the battery replaced about three months ago. Ironically, it was the original battery in the car. (I bought it when it was barely a year old and the dealer said it was, in fact the original battery.)

Before the battery was replaced, I've had the usual electrical issues that have been ongoing for years now- the third eye works when it wants to, the "dinger" is so quiet (and I'm hard of hearing), that you can't hear it when the car is running, and occasionally, random warning lights would come on, but go out shortly thereafter.

After I replaced the battery, suddenly the ABS light, Traction light, Air bag light all came on with the appropriate messages in the message center, plus the Check Engine light comes on intermittently. I hadn't had a problem before replacing the battery, and those all worked perfectly fine up til that point. However, on one particularly windy and icy Michigan night, I almost t-boned a semi truck when I couldn't stop at a stop light on the far side of a bridge over the Interstate, so unlike before- these lights seem to REALLY mean something isn't working right. I know the ABS and traction are related, but what would have caused all this to happen after changing the battery out? Does the car not like new parts?

I have tried hooking up my Innova code scanner up to it to figure out at least the CEL, but all it does is freeze up after telling me what protocol it uses. It won't go any further. I tried it in my old Ford van, and the scantool DOES work, just not in the Saturn for some reason. It has worked in the past, so this has me puzzled. I'll do a little reconnaissance in trying to diagnose the Air Bag light, but is this common for all these to go wonky after replacing the battery? I'd never had this happen in any vehicle I've ever owned or worked on.

I don't know if it makes a difference or not, but I have had a couple of the recalls done- including the wiring harness one (which I had hoped would've taken care of the non-dinger and disco dash, but didn't). That was about two years or so ago.

Thanks in advance, and stay warm!

[fdryer]

1-Replacing car batteries is supposed to be a no-brainer and without issues. Sometimes, just sometimes, electronics don't like power interrupts whether its a dead battery needing a boost or disconnecting battery cables. With a greater amount of electronics in vehicles, electrical/electronic engineering still takes into account power disruptions and programs electronics to accept this as part of real world problems. The easiest things to do when oddball problems related to car electronics occurs; check for blown fuses and try disconnecting battery negative for a minute. A 'graceful' power down of electronics describes using the home computer's software to shutdown instead of flicking the power switch. Software sometimes hang up and error messages pop up upon restoring power. Car electronics are less informative so disconnecting battery negative allows powering down to reset all the modules; ecm, pcm, bcm, abs/tc/esc, airbags, OnStar, radio, etc.. Most car electronics are reliable but there are issues and not just GM. All car manufacturers are having similar issues.

2-Never assume a personal reader is the final word when retrieving error codes. Use another reader when in doubt. With thousands of readers and scantools ranging from $10 specials to several thousand dollars for GM's Tech II scantool that services the entire GM family of vehicles, there are bound to be sketchy readers that don't perform as advertised. I started borrowing a reader first then graduated to Autozone readings before given a scantool as a gift. Even after a few years of use and successfully decoding many errors, I found out my scantool won't display the two precat O2 sensors, only the postcat sensors (3.0L V6). An email to the company confirmed this recently but I still found and replaced the two precat sensors from error codes pointing to faulty heaters in each one.

[billysvue]

I hope your alternator still functions after trying to keep a dead batery alive all these years...

[hrod]

Originally Posted by billysvue

I hope your alternator still functions after trying to keep a dead batery alive all these years...

I had a similar thing happen yesterday in my wife's 08 Aura XR. She picked me up and said the AC just died. We were an hour from home so I just rolled the window down in 93 degree heat and headed home. Within 5 minutes idiot lights and other warnings came on at once. I had a bad feeling we were loosing voltage and honking the horn confirmed that. It barely honked.

I whipped it off the interstate in Denver rush hour just in time as the transmission was failing too. Long story short, after replacing the original alternator that was 200 degrees everything returned to normal operations. Alternator was just under $300 at AutoZone. The car has 140k miles on it. I guess on a late model car the proper voltage is critical.

[mmtphoto]

thats kind of what I go through every time I disconnect the battery on my 2007 XR-I end up having to mess with the connection at the battery, the grounds on the radiator support, and then the dashboard 'disco' lights go away. I hate the GM side connections, and pretty much any time I disconnect the battery for whatever reason, I install new battery bolts-they are cheap anyway, so why not? There are numerous service bulletins about the grounds on these cars and in the past I have had to grind off the paint at the grounds on the radiator support and the left shock tower per the recommendations of the TSB's. I avoid disconnecting the batt cables for this reason.

[ddb]

Originally Posted by BLH RS4TC 4040

My '08 XR with 108K on it FINALLY needed the battery replaced about three months ago. Ironically, it was the original battery in the car. (I bought it when it was barely a year old and the dealer said it was, in fact the original battery.)

Before the battery was replaced, I've had the usual electrical issues that have been ongoing for years now- the third eye works when it wants to, the "dinger" is so quiet (and I'm hard of hearing), that you can't hear it when the car is running, and occasionally, random warning lights would come on, but go out shortly thereafter.

After I replaced the battery, suddenly the ABS light, Traction light, Air bag light all came on with the appropriate messages in the message center, plus the Check Engine light comes on intermittently. I hadn't had a problem before replacing the battery, and those all worked perfectly fine up til that point. However, on one particularly windy and icy Michigan night, I almost t-boned a semi truck when I couldn't stop at a stop light on the far side of a bridge over the Interstate, so unlike before- these lights seem to REALLY mean something isn't working right. I know the ABS and traction are related, but what would have caused all this to happen after changing the battery out? Does the car not like new parts?

I have tried hooking up my Innova code scanner up to it to figure out at least the CEL, but all it does is freeze up after telling me what protocol it uses. It won't go any further. I tried it in my old Ford van, and the scantool DOES work, just not in the Saturn for some reason. It has worked in the past, so this has me puzzled. I'll do a little reconnaissance in trying to diagnose the Air Bag light, but is this common for all these to go wonky after replacing the battery? I'd never had this happen in any vehicle I've ever owned or worked on.

I don't know if it makes a difference or not, but I have had a couple of the recalls done- including the wiring harness one (which I had hoped would've taken care of the non-dinger and disco dash, but didn't). That was about two years or so ago.

Thanks in advance, and stay warm!

I had a similar Christmas problem once before when I had to take the battery out and test it, My whole dashboard was blink including dials.
I took of the black pole and connected it again an hour later or so and all the dash messages were gone. it never happened again since. I still don't understand why it happened I guess some sort of a voltage problem.