gakor

Alright, so we made a bit of a mistake. Hopefully it's not a massive one.

We were working on the car, and we were trying to bleed the air cooling system. To get to the hoses to the heater core, we had to remove a small box connected to the positive terminal of the battery; it was in the way. We figured that this little box was connected to the radio, and we didn't want to disconnect the radio from power since we don't have the security code to unlock it. So we took a wire, connected it from the battery to the box, and got the box out of the way.

We ended up running the car afterwards like that to attempt to bleed the system, and we left it alone for a few minutes that way. This was a pretty stupid idea. That wire we connected melted. After hurrying to turn off the car, we went back about our business. Later, when we tried to run it, the car wouldn't start.

It's completely dead. Keyless entry, windows, radio, lights, nothing electrical works. There isn't any way to lock the back doors anymore! We tested the battery, and it seems fine.

Does anyone have any idea what to do? Where to begin? What to check?

gakor

I can't find the edit button, so I'll just make another post.

I learned that the black box that connects to the positive terminal is actually the master fuse. After tinkering around with it, I learned that I wasn't getting full power through the fuse, but I was getting some.

Long story short, one of the screws was never completely reconnected (we didn't know it was a fuse, and when wires start to melt you tend to panic and forget things), and so the fuse didn't have a strong connection. Turns out that was the problem. Everything is fine now.

Well, the heating system is still messed up and it needs to be bled, but otherwise we're good.