Car Help - 2001 Honda CRV Mysteriously Won't Start

Factual Questions
1

Over the weekend some kids smashed every side mirror on the block. In the morning, I went out to start the car and it wouldn’t go.

Symptoms:
-Absolutely NO power when the key is turned. No engine noise, no starter noise.
-No lights turn on. Headlights, Interior, anything.

Things I have done:
I took the battery out and rode my bike to the parts store, they checked it and said it was a perfectly fine battery (I bought it like 6 months ago)

Jumping it

Scrubbed the battery connections and terminals

Checked the interior fusebox

Things I think It could be:
A relay? A problem in the ignition? Voodoo fucking magic?

So what are some troubleshooting things I can do? I can’t find a relay schematic for the interior fuse box, so what’s in there is a bit of a mystery. My next step is to return to the parts store and look at relays, but I don’t really know where to start or which relay might be the problematic one. I’ve heard “check the main relay” but I don’t know 1) what visual cue indicates a bad relay and 2) which relay is the MAIN relay on a Honda CRV.

Mechanics help me!

2

I don’t know anything about the crv but generally, the important relays are probably in the fusebox under the hood and the underside of the lid should have a diagram telling you what is what. You should be able to pull the relay for something unimportant like the horn or lights and put it in the spot for the important ones like the starter to see if there is any change.

3

Oh, actually the CRV does have a main relay in the passenger compartment. See halfway down this thread.

4

First thing I would do is to try to jump the starter directly.

Make sure the key is in the “on” position before you try this. There should be three terminals or connections at your starter motor. The ones you want are the smallest one known as the “S” terminal and the one that is connected directly to the battery (“B” terminal). The S stands for solenoid and the B for battery. What you want to do is get a piece of wire about 6"-12" long and jump the “B” and the “S” terminal

The “S” terminal is easier to spot since it is the smallest but you may not know which is the “B” terminal since is it the same size as the “M” (motor) terminal. Another way to do this is you can get a long wire and have a friend hold that wire on the positive battery terminal and you hold the other end on the “S” terminal. If that does not start your vehicle then you have a bad starter. If it does start your vehicle then you need to diagnose the starting system.

Make sure to hold the the wire on the S terminal long enough to start your engine. Doing this is accomplishing the same thing as turning the key.

5

Disregard my last post. I did not read the part that said that nothing electrical worked.

6

Trace the wires from the battery and make sure nothing is cut, frayed, or shorting. Clean and/or tighten down all the ground connections. Or, if you have jumper cables or another appropriately heavy gauge wire, make your own temporary ground connection straight from the negative battery post to the chassis and see if that helps. If so, you know you’ve got a grounding problem.

7

Update:

I towed the vehicle to the shop. According to them, the battery was dead and a simple jump started it up. I was charged $200 for the tow and “repairs”

Lesson here, auto parts stores fucking suck and if you bring them a battery to check, make sure they fucking check it.

8

Shouldn’t it have started when you tried jumping it? You might still have a loose connection (or other electrical problem) somewhere.

9

Unless the wiring was royally screweed up or you did not jump properly, a jumped car should at least light up even if the relay / starter does nothing. It should at least click…

10

Maybe it didn’t have a good connection. Sometimes cars won’t make a peep until you wiggle the jumper cables, or even scratch the miscellaneous junk off the terminals to make sure the cables are getting a good connection.