Cooper424

Okay, It's raining cats and dogs tonight in Jersey, so i figured i would head to a friends house and chill for alittle. on my way i was going about 35 mph when i merged off onto another road- but i didnt see the gigantic puddle on the side of the road. i hit it and kicked up a giant wave to the left side of the car, well, when this happened i guess it must have thrown alot of water into the engine compartment- because once i got to the end of the road, my radio shut off and flashed "low battery" i thought that was crazy but decided to turn around and head home to try and fix it- well, once i got back to my block, all the other electronics in the car began to turn off as well. the windows wouldnt work - interior lights were shot, the buttons on the radio flickered and faded, the gagues, and then even the headlights all turned off.
i managed to put it in reverse and park it, and once i shut it off it wouldnt turn back on. it made a funny buzzing noise and didn't do a thing.

i called my dad, he pulled up his truck and long story short he jumped it, luckily the mustang turned on, but after taking the jump cables off it soon began to die again, same process over and over till the lights werent even on. while it was running i couldnt even shift it! so now were completley puzzled and have no idea what to do, we want to wait and let it dry but if the car dies while idling how do we know that will even work?

something that's even funnier - all the electronics dont work while the car is on, but when the engine isnt running and you let it sit, the radio will sputter on and off and lights, etc will begin to work.

we're thinking the battery got wet but we're not sure
it's electronics are all messed up.

has anyone ever had this problem before and if so how can it be fixed?

ford4v429

heard of a kinda similar issue on one, it had a bad pin in a plug in the harness that runs up under the fenderwell or something like that that took a while to diagnose...
could just be a fried alternator...my old camaro, and also our 98 windstar will get severe belt slippage if you hit deep water-stuff dims, fan slows down, but everything comes back to life a few seconds after the belt would squeal enough to get hot and grab.
I'd hook a battery charger for a while, see if it acts ok for a while- let it sit off overnight, if it starts, the battery is holding a charge- gotta be alternator/regulator/wiring issue...I think
good luck

tom281

Alternator. If the car dies from low voltage once you get it started, then the alternator is not charging. Or possibly you blew the link on the charge wire but I doubt it. Check the large wire coming off the alternator leading to the battery; make sure it is in good shape and the connections are tight. Otherwise, get a voltmeter and check the output voltage of the alternator once you get the car started again. If it's not above 12 volts, it's dead.

blackhat

Haven't had this happen before. Sorry to hear. Please post updates.

Cooper424

Just alittle update - i let it sit overnight to dry, although it's still damp outside, when i went out the car still isn't starting. the engine didnt even turn. just made a clicking noise.

i'm going to have it jumped one more time and see.

Cooper424

okay, the jump had the same results as the last time- we took off the cables and once they had been unattatched the car died again. well, after some care full thinking and the advice from tom281 we figured it was the alternator.

this theory is also reinforced by the face that when my car is running off another cars alternator it's fine. everything works perfect. but as soon as it's taken off it sputters and dies. without a doubt it's the alternator. it must have shorted when the car hit the puddle.

it's in the shop now and i'll have the diagnostic results by early tomorrow- but we're already pretty sure we know what the problem is.

thanks for the help guys!

Poco

Maybe you have a dead cell in your battery.Auto Zone could check that for you.