Non P-Car problem
 

Found a Kia Forum but as must of us have discovered there is simply no other car resource that rivals the knowledge on Pelican.

This is the Kia I picked up for the daughter. Solved the remote mirror issue.

PSA here: don't go crazy with crap like armor all all over the interior, a lot of those products off gas and settle on electrical components coating contacts bad enough that they stop conducting.

On to todays issue.

Dealer had the radio replaced with a DUAL unit.

Everything was fine for the first month until one day last week she got in and started driving when smoke started coming through the vents. She pulled over, shut it down and called me.

I assumed it was condensate from the AC, we are in TX, it gets hot and that happens sometimes.

I run over there and nothing seems obviously out of order, little smoke wafting around near the firewall under hood. She'd been parked on a really step hill prior to starting it and I assumed something dripped / puddled on the back of the block and burnt off.

Drove the car home and no more issues.

This weekend she went to friends, parked in the driveway, came out and no start.

Run over there with cables and a spare battery and it presents as a starter or starter solenoid so have it hauled home. I did notice the instrument cluster seemed to be dead, gauges, gas, rpm, not reading but dash lights work.

Did the standard, check all fuses, swap relays, getting a solid 12 volts to hot side of starter solenoid. Decide to try the old smack it with a hammer so tell daughter to get in and turn ignition to start it and she starts yelling it's smoking again.

I jump in and for sure smoke pouring out from under the dash cap right above the new head unit.

Had a chance to pull the head unit today and whoever installed the thing ran speaker wire from the ground and power of the radios harness (not the factory harness) to ground and power of the driver back up light as a trigger for the back up camera (although for the life of me I can't figure how that would work) and the radios hot lead was burnt to a crisp.

I don't know if it shorted due to a bad splice job or if the speaker wire could not handle the load and turned into a glow plug or what.

Disconnected everything and figure I'll deal with that mess later.

Car still wont start so I ran a lead from the starter solenoid out to the battery to test it and she fired right up.

Yay, no starter replacement, good.

Not so fast. Hop in to move the car from the street to the driveway and it's sluggish, barely moves, like the parking brake is one but it's not. Reverse feels fine, forward feels like it's not starting in 1st but more like 4th.

Instrument cluster is also still dead.

So, the short that caused the smoldering wiring behind the radio. What else could it have taken out? I know, a lot, rhetorical.

I'm unfamiliar with this car and could use some hints on where to start diagnosing.

What could be common between the instrument cluster and gear selector but not affect anything else, besides the starter?

My line of thought right now is since the instrument cluster is not functioning the transmission can't get a read on speed and does not know what gear to start out in.

Where would you start?

As an aside chewed the dealer out and he said he'd try to get the installer out to my house to deal with the radio but I think it's beyond that now.

No speed sensor or a related 'electrical' issue should trigger a code somewhere.

There must be some Kia software that scans everything on the buss system? My wild guess is you've lost a device on the CANBUS (or whatever they use).

If the dealer 'owes you something' I would be more inclined to drag the car there for a free diagnostic than have the idiot installer look at the car.

You have my sympathy. This is not a simple problem to diagnose.

Agreed that the short likely took out multiple modules. I would invest in a good code reader that will check all modules, not just the standard OBD reader that only checks the engine. I had a G-wagen with a variety of weird electrical issues, I invested in a good reader to eventually diagnose several dead body control modules.

Just checked Amazon, I think mine is the Autel Maxidiag MD802 Elite or something very similar. Currently $209.

Got it.

I'd checked the fuses but admittedly did not pay attention to fuses that were not obviously a part of the systems affected.

This morning I said screw it and pulled every single one and put it under a microscope.

Found one that to the naked eye didn't look blown but on closer inspection it was.

It was labeled "Meter" which obviously means Instrument Cluster.

Replaced it and everything came back online.

Apparently without a functioning instrument cluster the starter solenoid won't fire and if you jump the starter solenoid to get it running the transmission does not know which gear to select without RPM and Speedo input so it defaults to 4th gear.

"dealer changed out unit", some reason you are not going after the dealer to fix this?
I have had a few Hyundai's (sister company to Kia) and they have always been good about doing free warranty repairs.

I know you are a car guy and want to fix it, but why not save yourself the headache?

17 year old daughters first car.

$3,000 06' KIA that if it lasts her 3 years before she kills it or wrecks it I'm good.

Dealer as in dealer that deals in decade old used cars.

Ain't no warranties on those and no requirement in TX for him to provide one either.

He was good about it, offered to help with the situation even though he's not obligated to and not like I'm going to be a frequent recurring customer he needs to keep happy.

I don't have a beef with him, he could not have foreseen the issue either.

Car is running fine now and all I need to do is replace 3 inches of burnt wire on the radio harness, I can handle that. Far less hassle than leaving the car with the installer whose work I'm already not impressed with.

My bad, my string of Hyundai's were new... I was busy with my job and need cheap reliable transpo... on the very rare occasion they needed any fix I would drop it at the dealership and pick it up later int the day free of charge.

Glad to read you found it. Pulling every fuse and inspecting? Ouch! Offering this as an alternative..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1AMgLOHeHGE

Yeah, this was an inside the footwell panel with not a lot of room to move around or see what I was doing.

Awesome method though.

You have your head on straight here. Two kids for me. Daughter totaled only one beater. Son totaled a couple plus my 911. His frantic 911 wreck phone call indicated it was only cosmetic.:D

Within the last year I have defaulted to the test light for fuses. Half the cars that come in have missing owners manuals. Online fuse pin-outs are never quite what you query for.

I google where the fuse boxes are and then test every fuse, both sides, with engine running. Pretty fast.

Wow - I never realized those fuses have the conductors accessible from the top like that.

Car all buttoned back up.

Took a couple hours to rebuild the radio harness to my liking but the big payoff is............the back up camera now works. :D

When we picked up the car I noticed it in the rear bumper and we played around with the head unit to see if it worked which it did not.

I just assumed the installer never bothered hooking it up and it was not worth it for me to dive into the dash to deal with even though it irked me that it was there but could not be used.

In retrospect, had I decided to check the hookup I would have found the botched camera trigger wiring and none of the rest of the drama would have occurred.

Hmmm, maybe I'm not so pleased with myself after all.

Glad you got it fixed. I was suspecting a fried module in the canbus system. I know in some of the mid 2000s dodges, replacing the radio can cause major issues of not done right. Why'd they have to tie all the systems together?