Hello all,
So, I have an 07 Accord LX 2.4L sedan that started having some power issues a couple months ago. While driving the battery light would intermittently come on and off while the check engine would come on and stay on steadily.
After a few days of that the car finally died one day while my son was driving it to work. I jumped the car but it died not long after that. I did the old disconnect the batter while the car was running to determine if
its the battery or the alternator that's bad. I ended thinking the battery was the problem and changed it. The next day the car died in the same manner and that's when I decided to change the alternator. After the alternator change
the car would start after a jump and die a couple minutes later. I then suspected maybe the serpentine belt was slipping because I got a little grease on the pully's and not causing the alternator to put out enough power, so I changed the belt.
That didn't change anything, the problem persisted in the same manner. I stumbled upon this forum where someone said the new alternators from AutoZone could be defective so I then had the alternator tested and found that was the problem.

Yay, fixed!...Not!


So, changed the alternator again but this time I made the mistake of not disconnecting the negative pole of the battery first. I realized my mistake once I caused a spark while connecting the power to the alternator. After I had the alternator installed
I wasn't unable to get any power to the car. No dash lights and no power. After testing the battery, I could see it wasn't the problem as it had been fully charged and wasn't being drained.
I did some research and determined I may have blown the main battery fuse so I bought a new one from the dealer for $10. Installing the battery fuse gave me power to start the car and even drive it but the dash and everything else in the car was completely dead.
No windows, lights, or horn. I wasn't even able to take it out of park, I had to shift the gearstick manually by using the little insert next to the shifter (Wrong terminology I know).

I tested the fuses under the dash and a few don't work but weren't visibly blown. Same thing with the fuse box under the hood, certain fuses aren't showing to have power going through them even though they aren't visibly blown. I purchased new fuses and replaced a couple of the ones that appeared to not work. The new fuses didn't work either. My assumption is there's another fuse that's upstream from the ones that aren't working and once that fuse is changed then the rest will work. Am I far off with that assumption? is there something I haven't thought of or another fuse somewhere else that I may have missed?

I forgot to mention I've also had body work done to the fender, so it was painted over. I removed the nut attaching the negative battery wire to the body of the car and scraped off the paint. After reattaching it, all the lights came on on the dash but after starting the car everything goes completely dead again. I saw someone tried that and it fixed the problem, it didn't fix it for me but I found it interesting that the dash lights came on after that, even if for a moment.

Any help is appreciated.

 

Use a test light on every fuse in the engine bay fuse box, the driver's interior fuse box, and the passenger's interior fuse box. There is a good youtube video covering how to quickly test car fuses without having to pull each fuse. The fuse has 2 metal tabs on top, where a working fuse should have power on both sides. Post every fuse that is either blown or not getting power at all, then we can help you work backwards to locate and fix the source.

It is worthwhile to purchase a shop manual for your accord. Automanualsource.com has a pdf for your car for $22 and is worth the investment especially if you are good at reading wiring diagrams.

 

Thanks @PAhonda , I’ll be downloading that pdf shortly. I also checked the fuses with the test light and found that fuses #3, 5 and 6 under the hood has no power while #’s 10, 11, 17,18, 19, 20, 23, 24, 25, 26, 30 and 32 under the dash also has no power to them.

 

Did any of the fuses have power only on one side?

EDIT: Did the #1 fuse in the engine bay box also not have power?

 

The only fuses that seemed like only one side had power was probably #27 under the dash but I’m thinking it was just me crouched in an awkward position and not placing the tester right, cause I could’ve sworn there were times that both ends lit up. Yes #1 fuse under the hood also doesn’t have power, sorry I missed that in my first reply.

 

From the wiring diagram, fuses 1,3,5,6 are for each headlight bulb, so they only get power when you have low or high beam lights on.

The under dash is confusing a bit. The #18 and #21 should both have power from the same source.

Double check those alternator fuses, then maybe the #23 50A fuse in the engine bay fuse box didn't blow. Hopefully this isn't a fried wire or an issue in the under dash or engine bay fuse box. You just have to start by eliminating the source fuses from the engine bay fuse box as the culprit.

 

I considered the 50A fuse and actually removed it just to see if it was blown. I wasn’t able to see a break in the connection so I placed it back. I’ll see if I can pick up a new one and hopefully I won’t have to go to the dealer just to get it.
I’ll report back once I’ve changed that out.

 

I think you can do the test light check on that kind of fuse too. I can't remember if that 50 amp fuse is bolted down on each side where you can get access.

 

So, I checked the 50A fuse under the hood and it tested fine. I still went and grabbed a new one from the dealer today and replaced it. That didn’t solve the problem at all, I have no idea what else to check.

 

Based on the fuses that don't have power, I can't find a common source. I posted a pic below of the fuse numbering just to make sure we are talking about the same fuse locations. Just let me know what fuses are not getting power on both sides and also any fuses that have power on one side.




04 07 fuses