WTF!! Ignition switch and wires all melted away, What to do?

[Guest Anonymous]

Hey all, so after a long day at school, I walk over to my little 2002 sittying proudly by itself in the nearly empty parking lot, and I open the door and instantly get a big wiff of something burning. So I look around and I find that all the wires behind the ignition switch and the back of the ignition switch have melted away, completely charred. I cut the wires and tried hot wiring thinking it would be easy since they do it in the movies but nothing happened (I didn't know which wires to connect). Then I tried jumping the starter by hooking up the positive and negative terminals with a srewdriver and that didn't even crank. I figured that I had no juice going to anything, since none of the lights or stereo would turn on. Can anyone suspect what could have happened? Could a short have caused the wires and ignition switch to burn up. How the hell am I going to get this thing running by monday, is there a way I can hot wire it until I find an ignition switch? Does anyone know which wires I can hook up to get it started. Also, what could have caused the battery to not be giving juice to anything?

Sorry for the long post and all the questions,

-Cyrus

[cowlum]

Dont know about solving the wiring problems or what could have caused the melt down.

You should be able to run the car you get a good working battery and run a wire from the battery to the + on the coil. Then jump start.

good luck

[cowlum]

As you are probably aware that will not help with safety systems like breke lights and blinkers. So its probably not a good idea to drive the car like that.

Get a multimeter and check every wire that melted and replace the damaged sections.

once again good luck

[robspeed]

Hey all, so after a long day at school, I walk over to my little 2002 sittying proudly by itself in the nearly empty parking lot, and I open the door and instantly get a big wiff of something burning. So I look around and I find that all the wires behind the ignition switch and the back of the ignition switch have melted away, completely charred. I cut the wires and tried hot wiring thinking it would be easy since they do it in the movies but nothing happened (I didn't know which wires to connect). Then I tried jumping the starter by hooking up the positive and negative terminals with a srewdriver and that didn't even crank. I figured that I had no juice going to anything, since none of the lights or stereo would turn on. Can anyone suspect what could have happened? Could a short have caused the wires and ignition switch to burn up. How the hell am I going to get this thing running by monday, is there a way I can hot wire it until I find an ignition switch? Does anyone know which wires I can hook up to get it started. Also, what could have caused the battery to not be giving juice to anything?

Sorry for the long post and all the questions,

-Cyrus

OUCH! thats a weird one... how long was it sitting? did you leave anything on? What year is it? did it start to smoke AS you opened the door or had it been sitting there and you caught the end of it? You need to get the wiring diagrams for your year of car and try to figure out what shorted out. Either that or you might just try shopping for a new/used harness for your car. or one you can splice in to replace just what is burned up. Lots of work ahead for yah...... sorry!!

[sheggaw]

it melted everything. About a year or so ago, I got into which car to drive argument with my wife-to-be, I told her we should take the 02, she did not want to because it was cold. Mind you, I said, F-it, if you want to go let us go if not take off with your car and I will be in mine. I guess it was the 02 Goddess that got me stuborn. Anyhow, I opend the door and puff..just like you, something was somldering under the ignition key. I had messed around the bottom steering cover earlier that day and I had grounded one of the wired with one of the screws! I got it just when It started I guess, all I to do was to cut the tips of about 5 or 6 wires one at a time to fix the problem. I will bet that was the cause if you have messed around the bottome steering cover.