Troubleshooting an Auto Electrical Short

Video Transcript

"Hi, this is Chuck Orlandi, here at Miami Shores Auto Repair in Miami Shores, Florida. Okay, let's talk a little bit about troubleshooting an electrical short in a car. What that means is, if a car comes in with a short, it would either be one of two things. Either the battery's going dead overnight, or within a certain period of time when the car's not even being used, the battery will go dead. Or, it could be a blown fuse, which operates something in the car. If it's the second one, the blown fuse issue, we would look for the item that is blowing the fuse. Let's say it's the air condition compressor, whatever item in the car is not working due to the short... we would find out what is wrong with that wire that goes to that item. Usually it would be either a peeled wire, a wire touching against the frame of the car... something along those lines. It's a little bit tedious to find it. You have to usually look up a wiring diagram for a specific car and follow those wires until you find out where the problem is. If it's the other type, which has a draw which is drawing the battery dead overnight, that means that something in the car is running when the car is not being used. In that case, we would have to observe the fuses in the car. We would remove them one by one until we find out which one relieves the draw, and then we'll go on and figure out if that item is staying on, and why it's staying on when the car is not being run. So those are the two main ones that you would look for. Most of the time it's a wire problem... a wire that's got, the coating's gotten rubbed off and it's touching against the frame of the car or the engine, and it will cause the short and cause a fuse to blow, and then we would just repair that wire and that problem would be fixed. Those kind of issues, pricing wise, it's all a matter of how long it takes to find out where the problem is. It could be not too expensive, or it could get kind of expensive. And that's how you diagnose an electrical short."