Today, went to start the car again for a short errand.

Hopped in, turned the key and got nothing.

Lights very dim, weird clicking instead of cranking, bright dash lights when the key is out.

I pulled the lower dash panel and got the hood released with a pair of vice-grips.

Nothing weird under the hood. Battery connectors are clean and tight. All fuses are good.

I've misplaced my multimeter, so I can't do any proper testing at the moment.

I did go ahead and put my charger/starter on the battery and tried the ignition.

Really weird clicks, nothing electrical work, and the charger seems to read that the battery is fully charged.

With the ignition on, I could not raise or lower a window. With the key off, I was able to *very* slowly raise and lower a window.

With the charger off, there's no power to operate anything.

The suddenness of all this is especially weird.


It's so dang hard to get to anything on a P80 model, but my only ideas are these...

1) Starter problem - solenoid might have failed internally and is shorting current

2) Some sort of ground failure

3) Ignition switch?

4) Something else


I need to locate my multimeter for proper testing...

Any ideas?