My starter went out on my 1998 Honda Accord LX; it is a 4-door automatic . I replaced the starter with no problem, but had noticed when my starter went out that my car alarm wouldn't work (it beeped, but errored out & didn't do anything). When I noticed my alarm wouldn't work, I tried testing other electrical capabilities of my car. I manually had to lock up my car. I tried to use the door auto-locks, but they would not work. Even if I use the key from the outside & turn it twice, it will not lock all the doors. The turn signals & radio & everything else works fine except for one more odd thing. From the driver side door, only the driver side windows can be controlled with the power window swich... the back driver side window can be controlled too, but neither passenger side window can. From the passenger side though, the passenger side windows work like normal. When a starter goes bad, I have heard that it can cause weird electrical issues. I checked all of my fused, which turned out good, but do not know how to check the relays. Is it possible that a fried relay is causing this? Any other ideas?

Thanks,
Tylito

 

My guess would be something with the car alarm.... I'd imagine it monitors the locks/windows so if you blew an inline fuse or something on the car alarm that could cause a lot of your issues.... I'd start by ensuring that any inline fuse to the car alarm works fine... then if possible I'd try to unhook the car alarm from the system and test everything....

If all of your fuses are good then I can't think of one individual relay that would cause all those issues besides that alarm....

 

yea what kind of alarm is it exactly? and what did it control?

 

I'm not sure of the exact model, but it is a Viper alarm that I had installed about 6 months ago. It controlled door locks & had an engine kill feature & hood pins. I didn't have it hooked up to control windows, but have experienced weird electrical issues due to a faulty alarm a couple years ago.

Anyways, the issue is fixed now. This morning after I got home from work, I started looking at the relays that are in the hood fuse box. Six of them are the exact same, same part number & everything. I swapped each pair around & then got in my car & tried everything out. I was suprised, but everything worked. I was expecting something else on my car to not be working, but everything appears to be in working order. Maybe one of the relays had a bad connection that was fixed when I re-inserted them?

Thanks,
Tylito

 

Congrats on the fix.... that's a weird issue.... Good to know though...

 

i have the EXACT same problem, but i do not have an alarm on mine and no problems with the starter. what relays did you switch out? and did you eventually just put them all back the same and it just worked?

 

Sometimes relays get stuck in a swithced position and won't go back to neutral. If you tap on the relay sometimes if will help it unstick.

 

if you have a factory alarm you can reset it (along with anything else on the multiplexor) by setting intermittent wiper ring to middle position and turning the car on.