badcrc
New Member
- Joined
- April 21, 2009
- Messages
- 7
- Reaction score
- 0
- City, State
- WA
- Year, Model & Trim Level
- 2001 Mazda B3000 3.0L
I bought this 1998 Explorer v6 4.0 SOHC at an auction a few days ago, it was a repo, great condition. I drove it around a few times and had no problems except one time I went to back up and soon as I put it into reverse it died, so I started it again and it died again in reverse. I started it again and gave it some throttle, put it in reverse and it was fine until today. I was parking and soon as I put it into reverse it died, so I put it into park and tried to start it and all the lights went out, except the theft light was flashing.
Turning the key does nothing, no sounds or dash lights, I can't move the shifter from park, power door locks don't work, parking lights don't work, keyless entry doesn't work. I tested the battery with my multimeter and it shows 13 volts. I went to try starting it again and the theft light wasn't even flashing. Right now it's dead in my driveway and it was night time so I left it until morning. It sounds like the anti theft system is somehow engaged, but I don't know anything about this Explorer yet. Can anyone tell me where to begin? I'm not a mechanic obviously, but I've done your basic auto repairs (replacing fuel filters, starters, tranny gaskets/fluid, basic tune ups, etc).
The tranny fluid was a little low so I put some in just before I drove it for about 20 minutes and came home when it died. I don't usually have a problem reading tranny dipsticks, but for some reason after I put in fluid I had a hard time telling if it was low or full because the end of the dipstick had a lot of fluid below the thatched area, but the rest of the dipstick had a glazing of fluid, like it was just rubbing against the filler tube on it's way down, so I assumed it was still low, but instead of adding more, I took it out for a spin to let the fluid settle and engine warm up more and it died when i returned.
Turning the key does nothing, no sounds or dash lights, I can't move the shifter from park, power door locks don't work, parking lights don't work, keyless entry doesn't work. I tested the battery with my multimeter and it shows 13 volts. I went to try starting it again and the theft light wasn't even flashing. Right now it's dead in my driveway and it was night time so I left it until morning. It sounds like the anti theft system is somehow engaged, but I don't know anything about this Explorer yet. Can anyone tell me where to begin? I'm not a mechanic obviously, but I've done your basic auto repairs (replacing fuel filters, starters, tranny gaskets/fluid, basic tune ups, etc).
The tranny fluid was a little low so I put some in just before I drove it for about 20 minutes and came home when it died. I don't usually have a problem reading tranny dipsticks, but for some reason after I put in fluid I had a hard time telling if it was low or full because the end of the dipstick had a lot of fluid below the thatched area, but the rest of the dipstick had a glazing of fluid, like it was just rubbing against the filler tube on it's way down, so I assumed it was still low, but instead of adding more, I took it out for a spin to let the fluid settle and engine warm up more and it died when i returned.
