Robb235

I need a little help with something that happened to my 4 Runner Tuesday night.

I took it by AutoZone to get a new battery since the one that was in there was too small, and was having trouble turning over the motor in the cold mornings. I get the Duralast Gold, and the I let the guy at AutoZone install it for me. I'm standing a few feet away from the truck, not really paying attention to what the guy is doing, when all of a sudden, sparks go flying everywhere as if he's arc'd the terminals together. Then a small fire flares up back near the fire wall where one of the ground connections is located. We get the fire out (guy wanted to use a bucket of water ) and found that the ground wire was pretty burned up. An hour later, I managed to replace the damaged section of wire with some heat shrinkable connectors and replacement wire. With the new battery, the truck would barely turn over, but since it was still warm, it was enough to get it started. I got it home and went to bed.

Wednesday morning, I go out to start the 4Runner. It barely turns over. It won't start. I keep trying to turn it over. Finally, when I turn the key, the starter doesn't even kick. I try jumping it with my fiance's car, but no luck. It still doesn't even turn over. I try trickle charging the battery, but the starter still doesn't do anything. When I go to hit the starter, all the lights stay on (they don't even dim), but the starter just does nothing.

I'm not really sure how to diagnose this... Any thoughts?

Picture of the scorch marks from the small fire:

hoghead420

Wow, that's crazy. Man idk, did you check your starter and alt wires?

98SR54RUNNER

iTrader: (1)

I'm not exactly sure what happened with your truck, but if I were you, I'd check the fuses under the hood and in the cabin. Especially the larger amperage ones for the starter, etc.

Also you need to get back over to Advance Auto Parts ASAP and get documentation or something from them about what happened. They most likely made the mistake that caused this problem, and they should and will fix it. This wouldn't be the first time an Advance employee has screwed up and they've had to pay for repairs.

The longer you/your truck is away from that store, the harder it will be for you to get a claim made and taken care of with Advance. I'd urge you to get whatever documentation you can on what happened/proof that their tech installed it. And/or any paperwork for filing a claim with them. If the store employees aren't helpful, call 1877ADVANCE and get the process rolling with them.

My concern is that they may have caused a more costly problem than just a fuse or a wire replacement for you, and that it may be difficult for you to prove this/get them to take care of it.

I hate to hear that this happened to you, best of luck to ya!

Robb235

Thanks, but it's actually AutoZone. I called their store manager and he politely told me to piss off. I'll call their corporate office today and see where that goes.

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98SR54RUNNER

iTrader: (1)

Oops, sorry. I read what you wrote, but had Advance in my head the whole time. I guess I'm glad it wasn't Advance, because I prefer it over AutoZone, lol.

You should consider recording your conversations just for good measure. If this does become a costly problem and you do seek alternative means for resolution, any additional information/evidence you have will most likely be to your benefit.

Keep us updated, I'm interested to see where this goes. Hopefully they'll take care of it.

hoghead420

I go to autozone now and again, I always get this one lady every time I need something. Her most comon answer for everything is " I don't know " . I'm always thinking, seriously lady ? She always asks another employee . I chuckle and end up talking to whoever's knows what's up. So I wanted to check my battery one day, i go and guess who's the only one available. I pretended like I got an important call and told her id come back, so naturally I went to another place.
Best part is, turns out she's a manager, I couldn't believe it ! She literally knows nothing about auto parts, the other guys make fun of her. I can't understand it? So it wouldn't surprise me at all if they were to blame . Its just at autozones, all the other places are fine in my area.

BigBallsMcFalls

open a claim with corporate office

if they refuse to fix 100%

fit it yourself (by a certified ASE mechanic), document everything

file small claims court case

Thelast83inNJ

Hook up the negative side of a set of jumper cables from the negative side of battery to engine block/head/metal and see if it spins. Maybe he melted the battery ground on block.

hoghead420

Yea I'm thinking the same thing as the guy above me.

Robb235

Tried it, but it didn't make a difference.

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hoghead420

I wasn't there, but sounds like he crossed the neg and positive, I did it once when I was a kid, the battery cables melted on the negative side. Id check all grounds, I assume you checked both sets of fuses , and relays . id also look at the wireing harness at the firewall , and look for anything burnt. If nothing is out of order, check the fuse box wires to and from both inside and under the hood.
So does the truck do anything when you turn the key? Lights?

Anything not working other than the starting circut?

hrt4me

sorry to hear about what happened, and I hope it does not turn out to be a more serious electrical problem with your 4Runner

expect to be in a fight with Autozone for the long haul...

TheDurk

If nothing is visibly wrong on the major wires, my guess is the big 120A alternator fuse. This allowed your battery to discharge. A trickle charger will be useless in this situation.

If you have given up on AZ, first thing is charge the battery fully. Then check charging voltage at the battery with engine running. should be 13.7 - 14.7 volts. This is assuming she starts--but you got it home so I'm guessing it will. If it is 12.5 volts or less, the battery is not charging and first suspect is that fuse. Also check the ENGINE, CHARGE and IGN fuses. Then proceed as below:

http://tacoma.site40.net/4Runner_96-.../chasy/ovi.pdf

taco site FSM is back up, YAY!!

DeathCougar

iTrader: (23)

Assuming the Autozone guy did NOT cross the battery terminals (which, btw, is nearly IMPOSSIBLE to do on 3rd Gens without damaging the wiring), here is what I think:

Sounds to me like you had a bad ground or a starter that was going bad. The wires got hot because your either A. Do not have proper grounding, or B. Your starter is going bad which causes your system to draw too much current to turn the starter.

Do you have any aftermarket wiring, or had any work on the engine recently? If the main ground wire is disconnected or bad, the system will try and find a new ground. And if the one attached to the firewall is the only ground left that is good, its going to melt and catch fire.

At this point, you need to check all your grounds and make sure you have a ground from the negative terminal to the upper inner fender. If your 3 grounds (Firewall to head, Block to battery, upper inner fender to battery) are ok, then check the 120amp fuse. If all fuses are ok, move on to the starter.

Robb235

There is some kind of aftermarket wiring that the previous owner has done. The ground wire connected to the firewall looks like speaker wire that was spliced together. I'm pretty sure the previous owner also had an amp in here there is a large cable in the back running along the "trunk".

Once it stops raining I'll take a look at the starter and see if I can get that tested. Haven't checked any fuses yet. The fact that the motor turned over at first (slowly) and now doesn't turn over at all had me thinking something other than a fuse. Something else I'll check when the rain goes away.

hoghead420

Yikes, looks like speaker wire , yea id check in that area first .

TheDurk

The only way I can figure that wire burnt is that 12V+ got applied to the engine and returned to battery negative through the body. That ground being substandard was the weak point in the short circuit loop so it fried. I don't think a cross would do that as the battery negative would not be connected to body. Plus, as stated, a cross is very difficult on stock battery terminals with no jumpers involved unless the wrong type battery is used.

But no useful troubleshooting of the no-start condition can be done at this point until presence of a fully charged battery is confirmed and a trickle charger can't do that.

DeathCougar

iTrader: (23)

My point exactly.

I really highly doubt the Autozone guy fried anything, and for everyone to jump on the "blame the autozone guy" bandwagon is silly nonsense. Start with your grounds. Speaker wire is NOT and adaquete ground. Remove all the aftermarket wiring, return everything to stock, and go from there. I think you are going to find the PO was an idiot, and he is the cause of these issues. Battery size should be irrelevant as long as everything is hooked up properly, and the battery is fully charged. Getting a larger battery because the truck turns over slow is bandaiding a symptom, not fixing the root problem.

yotasavg

I recently experience something like this on my second gen. My battery did need replacing due to being extremely weathered, but my slow to turn over issue persisted. I looked into my starter, fuses, relay and after everything I found that I had a bad ground. Did some rewiring and now it kicks over like a charm. I am on the ground train with these guys, but I would also suggest not letting someone at the auto shop touch your vehicle until you have seen theirs or some credentials.

Robb235

The battery that came with the truck was a very under sized Valucraft battery that was not intended for the 4Runner. When I say I put a larger battery in, I'm talking about a 24F series battery. I hardly think that putting the correct size battery back in is a "band-aid" solution.

As to how he arc'd the terminals together, he did it with the metal piece that holds the battery down.

I am suspecting a bad starter as this point. Whenever the rain lets up here in Columbia, SC I'm going to take the starter out and test it out.

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