I've been looking around at different no crank threads. I believe I may have a new entry for the gentlemen no start your engine thread. Unfortunately, my car is at the body shop now so I can't diagnose. And the problem only happened twice, a month apart from each other. I do have a fix, a temporary one though. That temporary fix is disconnecting the battery for a while and reconnecting. Which makes me think it may be a problem with a module, and disconnecting power is resetting it. I bought a battery disconnect switch and have been disconnecting it every night so it'll start when I wake up to go to work. But I rather find a permanent fix. Another thing hampering the diagnosing is the fact that it doesn't happen quite often. Plus Sunday is my only day off, to where it would be ideal for it to no start on Sunday morning so I can spend my day off diagnosing. Well I'll begin my explanation.

Let me start by saying my key fob only locks the vehicle, the button for the unlock is missing when I bought it and I only received 1 key and fob. That being said, I use the key in the door to unlock. The first thing I notice, which will give it away that my car won't start is that when I turn the key in the door it will unlock but no chirp will sound. Followed but a second turn which won't unlock the rest of the doors, as if the power locks don't work. Both times my car wouldn't crank this occurred. The next few things will happen sometimes but won't matter if the car isn't cranking it happens quite more often than the no crank situation. Sometimes when locking it with the key fob it won't lock or chirp, but the second press will turn on the headlights. Sometimes when I'm in the vehicle pulling the handle, it won't unlock the door and pulling up on the lock tab will be really tight and if I pull it hard enough to get it up it will just go back into locked position once I let go. (Not fun being locked in the car for a little bit and I guess that can be a safety hazard). I forgot what I do to open it. I think I start the car back up and shut it off. Not sure doesn't happen often.

Lights on the dash turn on, the P on the J-gate lights up red, but pushing the brake there is no click from the switch. Also manually putting the shifter to neutral does nothing. Battery is brand new and reads 12.6 and passes load test. Checked a few grounds and positive connections around vehicle, not all of them, mainly just ones I could find by visual inspection and a few recommended in other no crank threads. Switched starter relay for a good one to test relay, no go. Tested starter, ok. Mainly that's everything I had time to do.

At first I was thinking immobilizer, but being a US car and only using the lock cylinder in the door to unlock the car I guess I can rule that out. I was thinking security module or BPM. Can a security module in these cars cause a no crank, in a car without an immobilizer function? I hope it will not crank on me one Sunday so I can test it while it's not working, because I feel testing it while it'll crank won't get me far.

The problem with the power locks and alarm may or may not be connected with the no start. But at this point with limited diagnosis I am going to say it probably is. Once I disconnect the battery and let it sit for a while than reconnect the alarm will chirp the power locks will work and the car will crank and run.

Sorry for the long exhaustive post just wanted to put it out there to see if anyone had ran into something similar or have any thoughts where to start? Car has 46,500 miles.

 

Update: Fixed. After reading a post about wires running up the trunk hinge, decided to take a look. Found some frayed wires. Patched them up and hasn't happened again. Fingers crossed.

 

Which issue were the frayed trunk wires creating, and ultimately fixed?

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The intermittent failures of the power locks, alarm, and no crank. It was only happening about once a month, but it started happening almost everyday a little while after I posted the thread. I was disconnecting and reconnecting the battery and it would solve the problem but maybe it was more the opening and closing of the trunk that remedied it. That is until I patched up the wires, now it has been flawless everyday. So far.

 

How about that, wow .... wires on the hinge somehow impact all those functions

Thanks!

 

I didnt count but there were about, I want to say 10-15 wires in the harness running up that trunk hinge. Only about 4 or 5 of them had some insulation missing and they were missing around the same area where the plastic cover went over them to hide them. I patched all the wires with some electric tape, not just the ones missing insulation. It just dawned on me I should have noted down the colors of the wires missing insulation so I could have posted it with the update. Please forgive me.