How to Fix Electrical Problems in Your Car (Ground Fault)

Electrical problems in car. How to fix electrical problems in your car DIY with Scotty Kilmer. How to find electrical problems. How to fix ground faults. How to use multimeter to find the source of strange electrical problems like a ground fault and fix it. Often bad ground wires cause weird electrical problems, like making the parking lights come on when you step on the brakes. DIY car repair with Scotty Kilmer, an auto mechanic for the last 45 years.

⬇️Things I used in this video:
2. Common Sense

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[scottykilmer]

Things I used in this video:
2. Common Sense

🛠Check out my Garage to see what I use every day and highly recommend:

❗️Check out the Scotty store:

👉Follow me on Instagram for the latest news, funnies, and exclusive info / pics:

[HumbleMechanic]

Nice vid man. It was great meeting you at the Shell deal last week. Your videos are 100% you, and I dig that!

[alexanderhernandez]

Scotty, I must thank you for all the videos that you have religiously posted and taught me the basics of being a mechanically inclined. I would be nowhere with my project without these videos.

[jvent]

What if the car doesn’t start at all???

[scottykilmer]

yes, check your anti theft system if it has one and it needs resetting. If not, check the battery terminals and wires to see if they are not getting power from being loose or cracked

[elflingskittensaunders]

Thank you so much for this. Seriously, both my father and my brother were/are master mechanics, and both have tried to explain things to me. Some things I understood but some I just couldn't grasp, because like many people they explained things as though they were talking to another mechanic. Your explanations are simple yet expansive, helpful without being condescending. Thank you again.

[kramnull]

Scotty, This video was about staying grounded, no getting lit up... Awesome video, You deserve a couple good swigs...

[henryp]

Thanks Scotty from 10 Years ago, still Helping me in 2023! God Bless you!

[Leggobrandonbang]

Ironically 95 percent of viewers are definitely not revving up our engines lol

[johnvandyk]

I keep coming back to your videos, Scotty. Great info. I just diagnosed a bad ground wire on the left high beam of my 2000 Nissan Maxima. I fixed it by running a jumper wire from the other light. I could not find the broken ground, but the guy I bought the car off of could not find it either. Lots of light now.

[VKSgtSLaughter]

6 years later and this video is still helpful. Thanks Scotty!

[justinrrizzo]

I freaking LOVE your videos. So helpful and so direct and quick to the point. Thanks for all the info.

[iainmeteorscan]

Wonderful. One of the best instructional videos on vehicle earth fault-finding. Well done.

[scottykilmer]

weak connections, try unplugging them all, cleaning them, and snapping them back together. Pray it's not a computer circuit problem, they need replacing.

[scottykilmer]

you can try the crank sensor, but if you've lost both spark and injector pulse, that's always a bad main computer on that model

[scottykilmer]

check the grounds and the switch itself. If all running lights don't work, normally the fuse or switch

[MrAhicks]

I just went through a similar problem to the example shown here (parking lights come on when stepping on the brake). I followed the "start with the easy stuff" method, and was pleased to find out within minutes that the problem was an internal short IN THE BRAKE LIGHT BULB ITSELF. The brake filament had partially melted due to wear and tear and was touching the tail light filament, which every time I stepped on the brake would feed electricity through the tail light circuit (which illuminated parking lamps and dash/gauge lights, in addition to causing my aftermarket stereo to dim its display due to power on the illumination lead).

This was definitely an odd electrical problem I have only seen once before, and I was glad to find it was not a problem with the wiring itself.

Additionally, many Saab 900/9000s and Volvo 240/740s are known for tail lamp ground issues - putting on a turn signal would flash alternating between turn signal and backup lamp (one Saab I worked on, the turn signal would flash the brake and backup lamps when your foot was on the brake but act normally when not braking) or other weird reactions as the electrons flow through other circuits to find a better ground.

[justabigbaby]

Wow, simple test. Alas, something the simple solution guy, who may be slightly leaning towards the Mr. Magoo direction doesn't know the two other steps you so graciously provided. Thanks again Scotty.

[joseburgos]

Thanks Scotty; as always good tips, simplified and well edited. You are the man when it comes to make it simple to us, keep up the good work!

[scottykilmer]

could be bad wiring, check around the alternator wires first. More often a bad alternator. O2 sensors can go bad many ways, so you normally trust the computer on board to diagnose that and flag a code when bad