Q: Door locks and unlocks, lights came on by themselves

asked by on August 29, 2016

My Trans Sport Montana has been doing the strangest things lately. My car is haunted, but it's really an electrical problem. On the passenger side of the car both of my power windows quit working. The thermometer on the overhead started to show the incorrect temperature. The display for my radio doesn't work very often. Most of the time there is nothing on the screen. But the radio works OK. While I'm driving the power door locks start to lock and unlock by themselves. This can go on for 10 minutes then it stops. My horn started honking in the middle of the night on its own in a sporadic pattern. I had to go pull out the fuse to get it to stop. Then my daylight lights came on in the middle of the night. My neighbor called me to tell me I had left my lights on. I tried everything that the owner’s manual said to do and nothing worked, so I pulled out the DRL fuse. I checked all the fuses, the relay in the cab, under the hood, had the battery tested and checked the engine ground cable. They were all OK. It looked like the bottom of the box came off in the underhood panel. I had pulled out both fuses from there. Is the bottom panel gone or is this normal? How do I change the panel out? Do the wires connect with plugs or require soldering? Do you know or have any suggestions on all of this?

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Hello there. Random electrical faults such as this are usually pretty rare. With this many faults and systems affected, it points to only a few possible causes. The most likely would be a body control module, wiring short, or a wiring harness fault. These intermittent electrical issues can be difficult to diagnose, especially for the interior where all the wiring is hidden. Have a qualified technician, such as one from YourMechanic, inspect this electrical issue if you need further help scoping out the problem.

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