a couple months ago, my in laws needed a jump start to get their mini van started because of a dead battery. I was not there at the time, but i do know that the jumper cables were connected to both terminals of the battery rather than 1 to the positive terminal and 1 to a chassis ground.

Since then a few electrical problems have come up in my 03 STR-

1- about a week after the jump, my left HID headlight went out. I checked the fuse and swapped the replays with no success. been lazy about taking the bumper off to swap ballast/bulb.

2- soon after the headlight, my right front turn indicator went out. Replaced the burnt out bulb and noticed the metal contact in the harness has slot burned through it from where the previous bulb was!

3- this week my keyless entry stopped working. The battery is good for the remote. i tested it at autozone's remote tester. I did swap the battery just to be sure. With the key in the drivers door, global close/open works correctly.

Kinda weird that all these issues started after the jump start.


Any one have ideas? The keyless entry not working is bothering me the most because of the possibility of having to take it to the dealer for programming.

 

It's odd but my drivers side front turn signal had the same slot burned in the metal socket?? I finally folded up a small piece of Aluminum foil wrapped it around the base of the bulb and fixed for good. Did you replace the socket? I tried but never could find one?
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it was actually driving me nuts for a while with an intermittent turn indicator failure message. i put the new bulb in there, but every other day or so i'd get the message that the right front lamp failed. I finally looked at the socket and saw why.

i used a small screwdriver to push the metal contact on the bulb over a little bit, enough to get it to make contact beside the damaged area. if that didn't work i was going to look for a new socket. so far so good though

 

i finally got around to removing the bumper cover and checking out the left headlight. the ballast went out. maybe these problems were just a coincidence

anyone know of a good place to get a replacement ballast?

As for the keyless entry... i hope i'm not going to have to take it to the dealer, but if i do i might as well get a few things done-

-add 2 more keys/remotes
-get some of the power steering fluid additive to fix the "squeak"
-get the transmission flashed to the latest version in hopes if getting some consistent 6k+ gear shifts