1995 945, 225k miles. No electric power at all after returning home. Initially the dash lights would come on, cooling fan would run, and the starter made a slight clicking noise when I attempted to start it. Now it nothing at all happens. no lights, no fan, nothing.

This happened one time before last march after I had the car up for a fuel pump replacement. I finished up the replacement, started the car, and backed it out my garage into the lot behind me. Halfway across the alley, the whole car died. Everything. No ignition power. No lights. Nothing. It was like the battery had been removed from the car. I was flummoxed and immediately checked the battery and its connections. Finding nothing wrong and cleaning the already clean connections, I was stumped. About 15 minutes later the car came back to life with no explanation. It never happened again. until today.

I had an issue a few weeks ago when some wires from the front corner lights shorted to the positive battery terminal. I had to re-insulate the wires and shield the positive terminal, but that took care of that problem.

From the complete lack of power despite the charged battery, I'm wondering if there is a relay in the mix that could have caused this. Could this be a hot soak problem or some other odd issue?

I expect that the car will be fine again once it cools off, but this could lead to some serious issues for my wife and child if I can't sort it out ASAP.

Sadly the no-power-to-the-electrics symptom takes the problem beyond the questions presented in the 700/900 FAQ.

I should mention that the CEL is on, even after I replaced the O2 sensor with a direct-fit bosch unit due to a persistent 2-1-2 code and a CEL light. I ran the OBDI tests just last week and all systems seemed to check out - except for the 212 code.

Perhaps the ignition switch?

Randy

This is from the 1995 940 Greenbook

Thanks for the reference.

I checked it all over again at the battery and noticed that there was some melted plastic on the positive terminal. I removed the connectors, wire-brushed everything and reattached and re-torqued the connection. That fixed it.

I find it a bit troubling that I've had to do this twice in 18 months because power was completely lost. Should I used some dialectic grease on the battery terminals?

I did take the opportunity to apply a thick layer of insulated along the positive cables as close to the connector as possible. I could see that there was more exposed connector metal along the terminal head than I thought safe. It looked like there had been some arcing. There are a couple of "extra' wires attached there that make the head pretty big. Hopefully the extra insulation will help.

No evidence of corrosion under the insulation?

Randy

Nothing serious. Only surface crud. The only systemic problem I can see is that the current battery had the terminals on the forward half of the battery (versus the rear half). the close proximity lead to one of the headlight wires sorting out against the battery terminal and burning up the insulation on the clearance lights. I sorted that out and reinsulated the wires. i think maybe the melted plastic from the wiring might have caused some of this issue.

I've since put additional plastic shielding on the positive terminal to hopefully prevent this from happening again.

I still wonder if some dialectic grease wouldn't be a bad idea