@@Sniper-hs2gm Common sense is what caused this. The battery was placed in the vehicle with the text facing the installer... sensible, right? That leaves the terminals reversed.
When i was a young kid, i remember going to look at a car for sale with my Dad. It was being sold as a non-runner, but it was a car my dad was after. A Renault 25 V6 Monaco. A very nice 80's french executive car. Looked at the car, It was dead, no lights, nothing. It had even had a "AA Inspection". AA is a roadside assistance group in the UK that give breakdown repair. Even they couldnt get it going. So my dad brought it, got it loaded up on a trailer and off we went home. Apparently he had already seen what the issue was when he first looked at it. The battery was in backwards !. Flipped the terminals around and it started !. So he got a nice car at a bargain price.
@Uncle Gilbert Swindled? Ignorant. "Hey boss, I just want you to screw me harder on price, the battery is in backwards I will pay you more for showing you that." Said no one ever. Know your product or get fucked lol
There should have been a red cap on the positive clamp. There is no way the owner didn't have to stretch the cables like crazy to get them on the terminals. Should have been a red flag right there.
@@sukalanger Good thinking out of the box, but then the battery wouldn't be able to charge until the diode is bypassed. Also, diodes have a voltage drop so it would reduce the efficiency, and create a lot of heat on the diode and require heatsink fins, etc. They didn't bother spending the $$ to color code or stamp a + symbol in one of the clamps so they definitely wouldn't have spent the $$ to offer active protection. Same on my Porsche 911... cables with both ways and I ended up having to take the infotainment box out to replace the fuses in it.
Since I own a 2007 CR-V, I knew it was one of the fuses. CR-V's and Civic's have bad fuses but run like hell. Like the Car Wizard's client, I too will give my CRV to my daughter next year. I will either buy a civic or accord coupe manual transmission. What is surprising the heck out of me is that 11 year old civics and accords in this area are going for about $7,500. But, I know the prices will go down next year. Rock on.
Drop a Gear and Disappear because of a misdiagnosis or just to screw someone out of hundreds of dollars? Ive seen a few of these issues come in to the garage before. If I ever call an Ecu as faulty I’m sure damn going to be right about my diagnostic
I agree 100% I love the Wizards videos and it's so unfortunate we can't all have a Wizard because I had a 2012 Kia Forte with water in the engine one time from vandalism. One mechanic had it for a few hours just told me I need a new engine... I took it somewhere else and they had it going the next day for only $600. It's crazy how either lazy or dishonest most mechanics are it seems. It makes me hate and distrusting of mechanics because just a few bad experiences. I try to do most I can myself and use a mechanic as a last resort because so many bad encounters with them.
Even if you have a good reliable car, you still need inspections and things of that nature. I would gladly pay more for an honest, thorough and smart mechanic.
No offense to Toyota or Toyota owners but 99.9% of Toyota cars are boring. I like excitement when I drive. I won't buy something like a BMW that break almost daily but I like cars that are fun to drive. There are plenty of reliable fun cars out there. With that said and like another person already said, even Toyota's need maintenance too.
@@stuartskinner165 But it doesn't take anything more than have the cables touch the battery terminals. You can still put the positive cable on the negative terminal of the battery. You can imagine the rest.
I saw the same thing happen at a Costco. Customer purchased wrong battery, orientation of the terminals was reversed. So when he installed the battery in the parking lot the polarity was reversed. The customer blew his main fuse on his car and Costco would not take the battery back as it was used. To be fair to the Costco tech, he did ask the client for the battery stud location as his car had 2 different orientations. The tech even offered to go look at his car in the parking lot but the customer refused prior to buying the battery. Lesson learned for that customer and he did try to blame the Costco Tech after he installed the battery and blew his fuse. Great video Mr Wizard!
@@4900dk True but maybe the guy is super rich and has several horses in the stable. Just spreading them out evenly but agreed waste of a great sports car.
My first car was a 1968 Mercury Cougar. When I bought it, it didn't have a battery and I didn't know that the previous owner didn't really know what he was doing and had the cables switched around where the red was the negative and the black was the positive. After doing exactly what the owner of this Honda did, I was lucky enough that I caught on to what happened quick and there wasn't too much damage. Now I triple check every single time I'm doing anything with a car battery, because I learned the hard way that red does not always mean it's positive and black negative.
This. My Nissan blew a 3-in-1 fuse when a cooling fan burned out. No store stocked it, dealer wanted $30, online would have taken days. Paid $3 entrance fee at the u-pull-it and grabbed a handful of them! No idea why they didnt just use 3 regular fuses instead.
When I got hit by another car, one of the main wires behind my bumper split and shorted against the body. The car would crank, but that was it. Interior lights, exterior lights, radio/climate, all was dead. As I took the car apart, I finally found the wire and repaired it. It took me forever to find the fuse, checked every fuse high and low for a couple of days, I just couldn't wrap my mind around it. I nearly gave up. It was one of the main, large fuses. Had to take apart the whole fuse panel to get it out. Once it was replaced, I was SO THANKFUL to finally get the job done. Blowing a main fuse is an absolute bear to find if you don't know what you're looking for.
Good advice on the battery situation. The owner got lucky. The fuse blowing saved the computers from getting fried. Those SL’s are nice. I know Mercedes Benz’s are expensive to maintain but if you service them properly, keep them clean, and drive the vehicle like you are suppose to they will run good and look good forever.
@@Matt_The_Hugenot Even the battery won't fit becauce it is not flat top. Terminals are a bit hidden so if you do a 180 deg turnaround, cables will not fit like it should
You’re exactly right; CRV’s come with a sizable red cap on the positive lead, from factory. So, as you say, someone (unfortunately) removed it. And, as a result, that’s how accidents like this happen. Never should’ve happened. 🥴
So I am an emc (electromagnetic compatibility) technician and along side of many types of electrical testing, I do reverse voltage over voltage testing. Typically these days cars have a lot more protection within all of the electrical components themselves. Even if the fuse doesnt blow right away or if it gets welded together in some odd situations, it wont cause too many or any issues outside a fuse. Bad luck on the type of fuse and availability, but however a great learning experience for the owner.
45 yr luxury/exotic tech here. Good solid diagnostic progression. Saved time and money. Lotsa young new guys now just start throwing parts at it. (But none of my trainees). Lol.
Sales is the worst, these degenerates think they know everything about a car cause they took courses about vehicle features, total morons when I worked in the service side
Mrs. Wizard just bought a 2004 Mercedes-Benz SL 500 almost two months ago. The Car Wizard has already made his decision to sell his 2004 Volkswagen New Beetle Turbo S. He needs to buy a larger, higher ground clearance vehicle to suit his needs for his mechanic shop and his family. He bought an older, 1998 Dodge Ram regular cab pick-up truck almost five months ago and he needs a reliable and fuel-efficient, mid-size SUV or a crossover with a naturally-asperated V6 engine and all-wheel-drive. For instance, the 2016 Toyota Highlander XLE AWD eight-passenger mid-size SUV is my top pick for the Car Wizard. I am still waiting for a buy this, not that video for Toyota, which will come up this Saturday or next Tuesday, because the topic for Toyota's will mostly be oil-burning issues with the 2.4 L four-cylinder engine and some of the hybrid ones, that Scotty Kilmer talked about tonight, which is mostly the older, Highlander Hybrid. Anyway, most of the vehicles that are not to buys are the Lincoln MKT, Acura ZDX, BMW X6, etc. The one vehicle to buy is the Mazda 3, for his other daughter, if she promised to learn to drive first with a professional driving instructor and receive her valid driver's licence, before she plans to take it for a nice cruise around town.
Slightly longer leads are very useful if for some reason you can't get your exact battery. You just need to double check the battery and the leads before you start connecting anything.
Newer cars today especially on Hondas have properly colored plastic covers on top of the battery leads to avoid this mistake. One thing to note especially on 4 cylinder Hondas sold today is that most of the OEM batteries being supplied from the factory provides just barely enough cranking amps (400 CCA) to start the car. I had cranking issues on my 2014 Honda Accord where the engine would have to turn over 2-3 times before starting. I went through the forums and found out it was a better idea to buy a new battery mount/tray and install a V6 battery with 500-600 CCAs. Once I had this installed the car started immediately and no longer had to crank a few times.
My 65' Alfa had its dead battery hooked up to the charger backwards once and the polarity of the battery got flipped. Positive and negative were reversed now and yet everything worked just fine, even drove the car around a few times. Gotta love points ignition and incandescent lights, it just didn't care! The only way I figured out the positive had become earth was that the aftermarket modern stereo in the glovebox stopped working.....no big loss since Id rather listen to that Italian 6 cylinder sing!
I had this happen to my Grand Am years ago. It ended up blowing up the ECM. I had someone give me a jump start and they hooked up the cables wrong and didn't know. Cost me $900. The board was fried.
My former brother in law bought the coolest most decked out S/10 truck I have ever seen back in the late 80'S, Brand new, it was ordered special by the dealership to set in the show room when the 88'S came out! It was bright red loaded to the gills! One of his buddies from the fire dept he worked at needed a jump and he didn't want to do it but he agreed to, He hooked the cables to his battery and instead of the friend hooking them directly he started tapping the cables together real quick making sparks and acting out Beevis and Buthead,! He yanked the cables loose from his battery, closed his hood and hit the guy so hard he knocked him under his own hood knocking the prop rod out and knocking the guy out cold and he drove off leaving him under his hood out in the fire dept. parking lot! The other firemen wondered where he was and found him and took him to the hospital! The hospital got the police involved when the guy told them how he got injured and the officer that responded kept laughing at the guy when he was making the report and told him if you file charges the judge is going to tell you he would do the same thing if you did that to his new car! That was plain stupidity! The other Firemen were laughing at the guy and agreeing and embarrassed him out of filing charges!
When I have to boost a car I disconnect my ground from the battery...then just boost off the battery alone. .if it won't start too bad..I keep an 8 mm wrench in the car to loosen the clamp.
@@dannycasler4959 Needed a cheapo sh*t battery from a junkyard once, so l pick one out from a car on their lot. Before their mechanic took it out he used the wrench & screwdriver to "test" it. "See? Sparks pretty good. This one's got juice!" Told him where to go & talked to his boss. (Got another 'good' one from a different car without that guy's help) 😎
@@dannycasler4959 The guy that kept tapping the cables to the battery must have been clueless to the fact that every time an electrical connection is made there is a massive surge of energy. Doing that repeatedly as he was doing can and will destroy electronics in short order. It could have also caused the dead battery to explode as a dead battery can give off hydrogen gas. I've seen it happen before.
If you don't know about cars: 1. *Read the user's manual*. Many of the false alarms covered in this video are also covered in the user's manual. 2. At the very least, *check the fluids and the tire pressure every month*. That's a 10-minute job, tops. And don't forget the spare, if you have one. A severely under-inflated, 10-year old tire is a dangerous thing. All the more so since it may look brand new...
When Wizard showed the convertible top race, when he said, "No way! They're identical! That's crazy!" I was thinking, "Huh. Exact same time between two cars twenty years apart. Sounds pretty German."
I have done this for years,, get some BRIGHT finger nail polish, clean a area on the battery near the positive battery post,, paint a bold red + sign on it, and paint a mark on the positive wire ,, easy_peasy,, now. Never a mix up. Ron..
What is amazing about cars that don't get driven not having many miles? I find amazing the guy that owns that 72 pickup he bought new and had maintained it to 400k miles.
what's amazing is that they still work at all, and aren't all seized up, leather dried out, wood split, leaks all over the place from dried out gaskets. Classical "owned only by an old lady who kept it in the garage and barely drove it" syndrom.
What’s amazing is that the owners were able to keep the miles that incredibly low, since the main purpose of a car is to accumulate miles, and based on a low average of 10k miles per year, those cars should have over 100,000/300,000 miles.
My mom has a 2008 Honda Crv (she still has it. She named it Sailor Moon). We got it out of the factory, brand new and it was maintained well and we service her car every 6 months. It lasted us for 11 years but last 2011 my mom fell asleep on the wheel and wreck her car. Luckily, Insurance paid for the damage. The car hold up so well until now. It has some few problems like shocks needs to be replaced and engine support is broken. But still drives like a dream. This is why we decided to go to Honda because of its reliability and its comfort.
Great Video Wizard! The EXACT same thing happened to me with my 2011Nissan Versa two years ago. Was expensive to fix but luckily the ECU was not blow. Got it back on the road. It has been running fine since.
I love how Junior Mint shakes his head yes and no as Wizard asks his questions on what what went wrong with the car. Also can you make a video on the CL65 AMG next to the SL550.
My worst scare was exactly the same problem--blown main fuse. I was in a rush jump starting it and messed up the jumper cable on one end. That was the '97 CR-V. Crisis averted and it worked fine after a fuse replacement. We have two of the CR-Vs (2009, same generation), and it would take a bit of force to get the harness pulled forward enough to connect to the terminal if the battery was flipped the wrong way. Also, the positive terminal on the harness is supposed to have a red plastic cover on it, which snaps down over the terminal after it is attached, so that is why it appears the cable is unmarked---the red cover is missing. The battery itself probably came with both posts covered, one with a red cover and the other with black. Watch for shops that look up the wrong battery also. These CR-Vs use the 51R, the "R" being for reversed terminals. About 15 years ago, a shop sold me a 51 for my '97 and I noticed it was the wrong battery when I went to hook it up.
Blown main fuse. Seen it happen on other vehicles. Thought I’d be a genius and replace the alternator on a vehicle without disconnecting the battery. Positive lead hit the block, popped that main fuse right then and there.
Usually I don't disconnect the battery such a hassle to reset the radio and on Hondas and Acuras getting the radio code and the navi code. I just pop the positive off and flip my pair of gloves over it. Mind you I also have an electrical taped ratchet, socket, and extensions so they don't short out.
Hey thanks for the amazing content Wizard! I really love these videos when you go in depth and explain everything. Thanks a lot! Greetings from Latvia 🙂
Oh man. I did this one day on my parents 05 Forester many moons ago. I almost passed out. Sweet baby i was so relieved when i found there was a GIANT fuse that took the brunt of my accident and saved the day. Fired a new relay in and the car was fine until it was retired!
Hi Wizard . Makes my car look old . I have a 2001 996 Carrera 2 with X51 Engine and 33145 miles and I would say it is in the same condition as these . I purchased it in 2002 from Porsche in Germany and took it back to the UK where I am now based. It is nice to know that I am not the only one who enjoy taking care of my CAR .
My grandpa had a ‘88 SL560 with 11k original miles. He bought it new and only drove it once or twice a year. He sold it about two years ago to a collector so for as sad as it was to see her go I was happy it was going to someone who would take care of it. He actually changed the original tires before he sold it just because of dry rot. Definitely miss cruising with the top down.
Lovely those 2 Mercedes SL especially the '09. but i would love to see a quick look on that CL. i've seen that it has V12 badge on it, that is my dream car.
As all my students know one sure way to fry a chip is to put the power on backwards. I always teach them to be extra careful about that. If the power is correct but a data line is hooked the wrong way it is no biggie once powered properly the chip protects itself from bad inputs ... but if the chip is powered wrong ... it more often than not dies. Just because the fuse was blown the ECU might also be blown ... it might have caused the surge - so looking for the update.
Hi Car Wizard. I have a shop specializing in BMW 7-series. So many clients have come in with a snapped tranchain. Almost everyone has the idea that the engine is "toast" but some of the BMW V8s have non-interference engines and then it is no problem with the valves getting destroyed. Maybe there are other people following you that would like to have this explained. Best regards from Sweden
I feel for him , he was being a proud papa and helping his girl , and probably got distracted or in a rush to do papa things , god bless the man haha it happens .
I love your Diagnosis videos Wizard!!! I learn so much from you!! I know its also a business thing for you, but I appreciate you sharing your knowledge with the world!!
Just another awesome example to your commitment to service excellence, David. Your transparent, unequivocally driven attitude and professional background is legendary.
As an EE, I can definitely say there are ways to prevent this. Every module should be reverse battery protected, as well as load dump protected. If it did blow a module, the manufacturer didn't do their job.
same exact thing happened to me which is why i knew the answer immediately (gotta learn from your mistakes!). was working on my buddies' Mazda 6 when I reversed the terminals and tried to start it back up. luckily I didn't fry the ECM, just blew the main fuse (which was a pain to get to in the fuse box) and one or two interior fuses. Once I got them replaced, it fired right up to my relief.
Quite a few years ago I bought a CRV from an auction, it was perfect, only 2 years old 19k miles. Paid for it and got into the auction lot drive it off. Flat battery as it had been sat for ages. Kind people helped me jump it off, sadly in this car the live lead is not bright red, and they connected the terminals the wrong way. Had it towed to the nearest garage. They told me everything is probably fried, but it turned out the main shunt fuse blew fast enough (exactly the same as here) and all was well. Very relieved! Honda should be fitting those giant red and back covers for the terminals.
I’ve always thought that it would be a great idea to make battery terminals in different shapes to avoid this very issue. I.e. positive round, negative square. That way, there’s no physical way to get them wrong.
Good show , Retired Auto tech, And I learn something. I retired in the Philippines and I have a 07 CRV Honda. Keep a open mine and you will always learn something New. I am from the States. Thank You.
This is how I got my 2015 accord, got it in 2017, the battery died and they tried to jump it. They crossed the wires and the car give a small puff of smoke. They just sell it at a bargain, almost half of used market price. Stating they are positive that the computer died. I bought it, replaced the battery and the almost the same fuse for no more than $160, and I have a nice 2 years old accord with 12000 original kms. They don't even bothered to check on it to the dealer, believing the warranty will be void anyways. But I still have a year left on the warranty, used for the 15000 km service and free oil change. Served me well ever since.
Yes, my first thought was a fuse. I'm not a master mechanic, just used to fix friends cars from high school and my own and over the years I learned a lot.
You think it be easier to have Color-coded tables or something. The fuse is good but you shouldn’t rely on it as your only line of defense. The guy should’ve been paying attention though buts it easy to get ahead of ones self.
Modern Honda's have a failsafe fuse to the main fuse box to prevent total blowout as well as a critical failure backup within the main fuse box itself. I've had this recently happen to my Mom, saved everything but the radio fuses.
my biggest oopsie, was a 93 f150 i was driving which i manual swapped (with a 4-speed manual out of an older truck, because i the e4od went screwy again), i had the bolts fall out that hold the trans to the bellhousing. was fun babying it back to the shop so i could jam some new ones in there. good coat of pipe dope, and they never fell out again.
Wizard! Don't forget you can get these fuses off scrap vehicles/u pull yards, had a Lexus where someone hooked up wrong polarity, fried main fuse, got a matching Toyota part number fuse same day from a u pull yard for a few bucks. Obviously as a business you and your customer would of course prefer new, but given it's not a sensor or complex electrical component, if you ever needed same day this would be an option. Also I'm sure you know about send off services that repair electrical components (many times it's could be loose solder joints, etc - I've repaired various porsche, mercedes and BMW electrical components on my own (LCM transistors, backlight transformers on S class cluster, HVAC control systems, etc (even repaired a $5000 wall oven at my lake house for virtually free as the control board had a solder joint broken). Anyways I'm sure you already know of these options and needed to provide the part as new/oem for peace of mind/liability but if in a pinch and you can't get something like this for weeks, you could at least consider using a used main fuse until a new/OEM one could be obtained. Anyways thanks for the vid, you're one of the most honest and humble people on all of RUclips 👍👍
A man in our office building used to drive a Bentley...TurboR I think but could be wrong about the model. One week it wasn't in the lot anymore. Asked him and he said that he had bought a new battery and the shop installed it backward frying his electrical system. Moral: Get a Honda with a fuse.
Beware of ultra ultra low mileage. Local shop found a TRASHED engine from a little old lady that primarily used her car to drive to the end of her long driveway to get the mail...the engine oil never heated up...it was basically like having no oil at all.
Can we turn these Q&A segments into a choose your own adventure type deal? Like "if you answered A, skip to 13:00" and you show why the answer is wrong, and some comedic hijinx happen like the car catches fire.
I'm no mechanic, but as soon as I heard that he hooked it backwards, I'm like there goes the master fuse! I used to assume the worst when I have car problems, but now I just start with the fuse box. I had problems with my cruise control, looked online, everybody's like clock spring clock spring clock spring, I checked the fuse box, the fuse was blown, it's fine. this means I have a bad ground or an exposed wire somewhere because it happened during a car wash.
Being an auto tech as well, we had something similar a few weeks ago. There was a 2018 Corolla that the owner tried to jump start the car using cables and reversed the polarity. We had to dismantle part of the main fuse block to repair a blown main fuse/fusible link. After we fixed that and a half dozen other fuses, we woke up about 7 computers with a scan tool. Just goes to show, simple can be costly.
Some brands of barely worn old tires, at least in the past, had a tendency for the tread to get hard over time. Taking a left turn a bit fast at some busy intersection as a light shower started could become quite exciting. If a steady diet of fast cornering over a few months brought no improvement in such a car's traction under bad conditions, new tires were usually the best, safest choice.
Yep, my 07 Honda only has 34,000 kms and has its original tires. Always garaged, no weathering/cracking. Lots of good tread left but hard as a rock. I avoid using the car on the hwy and in the rain. Time to replace them unfortunately.
And I LITERALLY started my wrenching career working on anything from F150’s to $90,000+ fully loaded King Ranch F-450’s. And yes, they have leather, heated and ac seats, 360 camera’s, moonroof, lane keep assist, etc etc etc.
I have owned several Honda’s. All of them had color coded covers that went over the battery terminals: red for positive, black for negative. That CRV should have had those covers. Too bad somewhere along the line the covers were removed. As for a “my bad” on a repair, the first time I did the brakes on my BMW, I reversed one of the brake pads. On the passenger side rear, I reversed the outboard pad, putting the metal backing plate on the surface of the rotor. Once I heard the metal on metal scraping, I knew I had screwed up. Fortunately, I caught it quickly enough so that the damage to the rotor has minimal.
LOVE the 2007-2011 CRV. I just got one a few months ago with 65,000 miles! My dad has a 08 and i had to have one after driving it. Really reliable machines
My mother has a 2011 CRV, 66,000 miles. It has never had any problems ever since she got it from the dealer in 2011. She’s kept the car visually in tip top shape, making the car look good as new lol. They really are great machines.
Good luck with your transmission if it's automatic. The filter gets blocked and you CAN'T change it w/o taking the transmission OFF the car and splitting the cases. Horrible design flaw. I'm currently rebuilding mine. 2 owner car, always looked after and still shit the bed at just 115k miles. 😒💩👎
... "So I have bypassed that fuse"... @ 5:38. So, no current thru the fuse. The fuse was blown/ burned out. So from experience/ logic, you were safe to do no harm, by bypassing that fuse. That all makes sense to me also. Q: Were you sure that nothing else was damaged, at the same time the fuse blew? Just asking and not being a wise guy. PS: I paid a car aircon tech for his completed/ billed repairs. 10 minutes later, I arrived at the Mall. I smelled a strong smoke odor. Parked car, opened up the hood. My whole wiring harness had burned up or melted. WTF!? That aircon tech had bypassed a fuse with a metal coin. How'd I know? Black charred coin, still in fuse slot. D'oh! >A new visitor - Great vids Wiz!
No shortage at Honda Some dum owner lost the pos cover during the crv transition Most made in Japan have pos red plastic Cover on the battery terminals Have coloured felt around the post To prevent corrosion and at the same time identify polarity This crv was not well serviced Or well maintained
@@cb400fhonda6 I just checked my Odyssey.. both battery cable are black.!! Yes, the positive just has a red cover on it. I wonder why Honda doesn't use red battery cables on the positive side?
I've got a 1994 GMC K1500 4WD Pickup... just turned 20,400 original miles over the weekend. The paint is worn due to being stored outside, however no rust or issues.
@@user-tb7rn1il3q only if it wasn't taken care of. There is no reason for a modern vehicle (domestic or otherwise) to not last when maintained. There are some exceptions of course.
I am fairly certain all vehicles have a main fuse. Besides, I'm pretty sure if one of the criteria you have for choosing a car is it surviving a battery installed with the polarity backwards you may have gone to far! :) Honda really should have more than a red brittle plastic cap standing between a proper install and disaster. And I say that as an odyssey owner.
Mrdumbfellow Most failures are not because of maintenance practices (or lack of it). Sure if you don’t change oil you will eventually have lube failure, but there is no evidence that domestic owners abuse their cars more.
I spent 15 years working as a mechanic at a local Chevrolet dealer, I had an S-10 pickup with a dead battery. I had a coworker charge the battery for me. Little did I know he recharged it with the charging cables reversed with the positive cable on the negative terminal and the Negative cable on the positive terminal. I didn't know it then, but when I reinstalled the cables, I watched in terror as the wiring melted from the battery to all the other wiring connections. Thank's to the idiot that charged the battery the wrong way, the dealership had to spring for a front wiring harness. I didn't mind that but I'm the one that had to replace it. Lesson to be learned-----ALWAYS, look at the + and the -- on the battery first, then check your battery to make sure some buffoon didn't charge it the wrong way. I left Chevrolet in 1998 and so happy, I suffered from mechanic burnout--I'm sure there's a lot of guys out there just like me that have just had enough of the madness.
Sounds like they got the design perfect? It blew a fuse when he installed the battery backwards, not his ECM or other expensive electronics...the fuse did exactly what it was meant to do.
Blown main fuse. It had happened to me.........lol. Feeling like an idiot. Easy fix. I check all the RUclips, but there is no one make a video for that. I towed it to the Garage. The guy fixed it and charged it for $500.00. Thanks for make such a video, u save people alot of money.
1979 my brother gets his first vehicle, a mid 60s Econoline with a 289 so it's got some electrical issues, my brother decided to replace all the wiring and it takes about a month, puts the new battery in and goes to connect the same color main battery cables and the inside fills with smoke, so you guessed it he hooked it up reverse polarity and cooked some stuff, took a few weeks to fix it and then it had different color battery cables
I would wrap the positive lead in red electrical tape to avoid future errors.
I would brush up on common sense.
@@Sniper-hs2gm Common sense is what caused this. The battery was placed in the vehicle with the text facing the installer... sensible, right? That leaves the terminals reversed.
I would recommend AAA or some kind of roadside assistance and CONFISCATE all his tools. Permanently.
@@deplorabledave1048 I would recommend Francis lighten up.
That or a big red zip-tie. Less likely to come off.
My immediate reaction was "ECU" - but then I remembered wait, this is someone else's car, not mine, so it probably isn't the worst-case scenario...
funny
HAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
I feel that😂😂😂
I thought the same thing.
Lol so true
When i was a young kid, i remember going to look at a car for sale with my Dad. It was being sold as a non-runner, but it was a car my dad was after. A Renault 25 V6 Monaco. A very nice 80's french executive car. Looked at the car, It was dead, no lights, nothing. It had even had a "AA Inspection". AA is a roadside assistance group in the UK that give breakdown repair. Even they couldnt get it going. So my dad brought it, got it loaded up on a trailer and off we went home. Apparently he had already seen what the issue was when he first looked at it. The battery was in backwards !. Flipped the terminals around and it started !. So he got a nice car at a bargain price.
I've heard stories of people buying vehicles with a "seized engine" that turned out to just be a seized alternator
Great story!
@Uncle Gilbert Swindled? Ignorant. "Hey boss, I just want you to screw me harder on price, the battery is in backwards I will pay you more for showing you that." Said no one ever. Know your product or get fucked lol
I would have done the honorable thing and revealed this to the owner. But that is just me and how my
values are.
That’s what you get when you have an alcoholic inspect your car !
Wizard out here giving the best automotive consumer advice.
Good man, good deed, and a damned talented mechanic.
I'm glad Honda had a fuse in place for stop further damage, but this issue could have been avoided with color coded wires or something.
There should have been a red cap on the positive clamp. There is no way the owner didn't have to stretch the cables like crazy to get them on the terminals. Should have been a red flag right there.
Most cars the positive cap cable is red in Europe....
@@DaNiElLl430 Why not a diode on the power feed from battery
@@DaNiElLl430
With the battery turned around it probably wasn't a stretch at all to hook up the leads.
@@sukalanger Good thinking out of the box, but then the battery wouldn't be able to charge until the diode is bypassed. Also, diodes have a voltage drop so it would reduce the efficiency, and create a lot of heat on the diode and require heatsink fins, etc. They didn't bother spending the $$ to color code or stamp a + symbol in one of the clamps so they definitely wouldn't have spent the $$ to offer active protection. Same on my Porsche 911... cables with both ways and I ended up having to take the infotainment box out to replace the fuses in it.
Since I own a 2007 CR-V, I knew it was one of the fuses. CR-V's and Civic's have bad fuses but run like hell. Like the Car Wizard's client, I too will give my CRV to my daughter next year. I will either buy a civic or accord coupe manual transmission. What is surprising the heck out of me is that 11 year old civics and accords in this area are going for about $7,500. But, I know the prices will go down next year. Rock on.
This is a repair that many shops would write for an ecu and over charge the customer.
As someone who works in a service department, this is unfortunately accurate
Drop a Gear and Disappear because of a misdiagnosis or just to screw someone out of hundreds of dollars? Ive seen a few of these issues come in to the garage before. If I ever call an Ecu as faulty I’m sure damn going to be right about my diagnostic
Always ask for the old parts
I agree 100% I love the Wizards videos and it's so unfortunate we can't all have a Wizard because I had a 2012 Kia Forte with water in the engine one time from vandalism. One mechanic had it for a few hours just told me I need a new engine... I took it somewhere else and they had it going the next day for only $600. It's crazy how either lazy or dishonest most mechanics are it seems. It makes me hate and distrusting of mechanics because just a few bad experiences. I try to do most I can myself and use a mechanic as a last resort because so many bad encounters with them.
B B knowing how to fix water in the engine I wouldn’t call basic car repair though.
This is an example of a man who loves to do his craft. Keep up the treasured videos.
I want to relocate just so I can take my cars to the wizards shop for maintenance and repairs.
theREALnizzle, same but I wouldn’t wanna live in Kansas lol 😂
@Malcolm Reynolds Malcolm which Toyota dealership do you work at.
Even if you have a good reliable car, you still need inspections and things of that nature. I would gladly pay more for an honest, thorough and smart mechanic.
@Malcolm Reynolds Toyota's still needs maintenance.
No offense to Toyota or Toyota owners but 99.9% of Toyota cars are boring. I like excitement when I drive. I won't buy something like a BMW that break almost daily but I like cars that are fun to drive. There are plenty of reliable fun cars out there. With that said and like another person already said, even Toyota's need maintenance too.
Soo much could have been done by manufacturers to avoid this scenario. Color coded wires, different size terminals, diodes.
I have a CR-V just like this, they have it, and a fuse on the ground terminal to prevent just that, it’s their fault for not having them on
Most Japanese vehicles have a red plastic cover over + terminal
In above case it's probably long gone
@@cb400fhonda6 My Chrysler and Ram both have a red cover over the + terminal wire
Negative battery terminals are smaller
@@stuartskinner165 But it doesn't take anything more than have the cables touch the battery terminals. You can still put the positive cable on the negative terminal of the battery. You can imagine the rest.
That main fuse is the one that almost never goes out, so no one is keeping it on the shelf.
Time to scrounge the junk yards
Hughes Enterprises that’s the first thing I thought. Just go take a couple from the junk yard and one of them should work.
@@HughesEnterprises Not all of us have nearby junk yards.
@@nickv4073 Then buy one off the internet
These dumb people would not know that.
I saw the same thing happen at a Costco. Customer purchased wrong battery, orientation of the terminals was reversed. So when he installed the battery in the parking lot the polarity was reversed. The customer blew his main fuse on his car and Costco would not take the battery back as it was used. To be fair to the Costco tech, he did ask the client for the battery stud location as his car had 2 different orientations. The tech even offered to go look at his car in the parking lot but the customer refused prior to buying the battery. Lesson learned for that customer and he did try to blame the Costco Tech after he installed the battery and blew his fuse. Great video Mr Wizard!
A shame to see an SL550 not being enjoyed. Just a waste of a sports car!
I drive more than 3,000 miles a month!
The SL is not really a sports car considering its weight more like a cruiser
Not driving ur car to keep the miles low, is like not bang ur gf to keep her tight for the next guy 🤦🏻♂️
@@4900dk only if you plan on getting rid of it
@@4900dk True but maybe the guy is super rich and has several horses in the stable. Just spreading them out evenly but agreed waste of a great sports car.
My first car was a 1968 Mercury Cougar. When I bought it, it didn't have a battery and I didn't know that the previous owner didn't really know what he was doing and had the cables switched around where the red was the negative and the black was the positive. After doing exactly what the owner of this Honda did, I was lucky enough that I caught on to what happened quick and there wasn't too much damage. Now I triple check every single time I'm doing anything with a car battery, because I learned the hard way that red does not always mean it's positive and black negative.
That type of fuse is hard to get because they rarely ever blow so few suppliers want to shelf a part that will just collect dust
This. My Nissan blew a 3-in-1 fuse when a cooling fan burned out. No store stocked it, dealer wanted $30, online would have taken days. Paid $3 entrance fee at the u-pull-it and grabbed a handful of them! No idea why they didnt just use 3 regular fuses instead.
I like this as a new series. Really like the interactive part of solving a problem.
Legend has it: The Car Wizard built the hospital he was born in.
He was born with a flashlight in his mouth.
Was born a master tech
Did he perform a brain transplant on Tyler?
He also repaired his mother's car just before she went into labor so she was able drive to the hospital he built and give birth to him
Damn 😂
When I got hit by another car, one of the main wires behind my bumper split and shorted against the body. The car would crank, but that was it. Interior lights, exterior lights, radio/climate, all was dead. As I took the car apart, I finally found the wire and repaired it. It took me forever to find the fuse, checked every fuse high and low for a couple of days, I just couldn't wrap my mind around it. I nearly gave up. It was one of the main, large fuses. Had to take apart the whole fuse panel to get it out. Once it was replaced, I was SO THANKFUL to finally get the job done.
Blowing a main fuse is an absolute bear to find if you don't know what you're looking for.
5:17 his third hand makes a appearance.........no wonder he is so good
Nice nails, too :-)
Good advice on the battery situation. The owner got lucky. The fuse blowing saved the computers from getting fried. Those SL’s are nice. I know Mercedes Benz’s are expensive to maintain but if you service them properly, keep them clean, and drive the vehicle like you are suppose to they will run good and look good forever.
I have one. It has a red plastic cap on the positive. I believe someone removed it on this car somewhere along the way.
I was surprised there were no colored boots, I don't know about North America but over here they're standard.
@@Matt_The_Hugenot Even the battery won't fit becauce it is not flat top. Terminals are a bit hidden so if you do a 180 deg turnaround, cables will not fit like it should
You’re exactly right; CRV’s come with a sizable red cap on the positive lead, from factory. So, as you say, someone (unfortunately) removed it. And, as a result, that’s how accidents like this happen. Never should’ve happened. 🥴
So I am an emc (electromagnetic compatibility) technician and along side of many types of electrical testing, I do reverse voltage over voltage testing. Typically these days cars have a lot more protection within all of the electrical components themselves. Even if the fuse doesnt blow right away or if it gets welded together in some odd situations, it wont cause too many or any issues outside a fuse. Bad luck on the type of fuse and availability, but however a great learning experience for the owner.
100 amps is a lot of power, and good thing he brought it to an honest shop!
45 yr luxury/exotic tech here.
Good solid diagnostic progression. Saved time and money. Lotsa young new guys now just start throwing parts at it. (But none of my trainees). Lol.
Working in a dealer Ive seen this alot when sales tried to jump a dead car. We even had main fuses in stock😂. Only once did I see the ecm fried.
Sales is the worst, these degenerates think they know everything about a car cause they took courses about vehicle features, total morons when I worked in the service side
Sounds about right most of times it’s a fuse or a wire and they think they burnt they shit ill only ran into a couple burnt computer aswell
Mrs. Wizard just bought a 2004 Mercedes-Benz SL 500 almost two months ago. The Car Wizard has already made his decision to sell his 2004 Volkswagen New Beetle Turbo S. He needs to buy a larger, higher ground clearance vehicle to suit his needs for his mechanic shop and his family. He bought an older, 1998 Dodge Ram regular cab pick-up truck almost five months ago and he needs a reliable and fuel-efficient, mid-size SUV or a crossover with a naturally-asperated V6 engine and all-wheel-drive. For instance, the 2016 Toyota Highlander XLE AWD eight-passenger mid-size SUV is my top pick for the Car Wizard. I am still waiting for a buy this, not that video for Toyota, which will come up this Saturday or next Tuesday, because the topic for Toyota's will mostly be oil-burning issues with the 2.4 L four-cylinder engine and some of the hybrid ones, that Scotty Kilmer talked about tonight, which is mostly the older, Highlander Hybrid. Anyway, most of the vehicles that are not to buys are the Lincoln MKT, Acura ZDX, BMW X6, etc. The one vehicle to buy is the Mazda 3, for his other daughter, if she promised to learn to drive first with a professional driving instructor and receive her valid driver's licence, before she plans to take it for a nice cruise around town.
When the battery was turned around the wrong way, the positive cable obviously reached, but it was a stretch.
Slightly longer leads are very useful if for some reason you can't get your exact battery. You just need to double check the battery and the leads before you start connecting anything.
Newer cars today especially on Hondas have properly colored plastic covers on top of the battery leads to avoid this mistake.
One thing to note especially on 4 cylinder Hondas sold today is that most of the OEM batteries being supplied from the factory provides just barely enough cranking amps (400 CCA) to start the car. I had cranking issues on my 2014 Honda Accord where the engine would have to turn over 2-3 times before starting.
I went through the forums and found out it was a better idea to buy a new battery mount/tray and install a V6 battery with 500-600 CCAs. Once I had this installed the car started immediately and no longer had to crank a few times.
Every time I watch Wizard's videos I feel the urge to go fix something!
My 65' Alfa had its dead battery hooked up to the charger backwards once and the polarity of the battery got flipped. Positive and negative were reversed now and yet everything worked just fine, even drove the car around a few times. Gotta love points ignition and incandescent lights, it just didn't care! The only way I figured out the positive had become earth was that the aftermarket modern stereo in the glovebox stopped working.....no big loss since Id rather listen to that Italian 6 cylinder sing!
I had this happen to my Grand Am years ago. It ended up blowing up the ECM. I had someone give me a jump start and they hooked up the cables wrong and didn't know. Cost me $900. The board was fried.
@PM The board was fried. My mechanic showed it to me. None of the fuses were damaged.
My former brother in law bought the coolest most decked out S/10 truck I have ever seen back in the late 80'S, Brand new, it was ordered special by the dealership to set in the show room when the 88'S came out! It was bright red loaded to the gills! One of his buddies from the fire dept he worked at needed a jump and he didn't want to do it but he agreed to, He hooked the cables to his battery and instead of the friend hooking them directly he started tapping the cables together real quick making sparks and acting out Beevis and Buthead,! He yanked the cables loose from his battery, closed his hood and hit the guy so hard he knocked him under his own hood knocking the prop rod out and knocking the guy out cold and he drove off leaving him under his hood out in the fire dept. parking lot! The other firemen wondered where he was and found him and took him to the hospital! The hospital got the police involved when the guy told them how he got injured and the officer that responded kept laughing at the guy when he was making the report and told him if you file charges the judge is going to tell you he would do the same thing if you did that to his new car! That was plain stupidity! The other Firemen were laughing at the guy and agreeing and embarrassed him out of filing charges!
When I have to boost a car I disconnect my ground from the battery...then just boost off the battery alone. .if it won't start too bad..I keep an 8 mm wrench in the car to loosen the clamp.
@@dannycasler4959
Needed a cheapo sh*t battery from a junkyard once, so l pick one out from a car on their lot.
Before their mechanic took it out he used the wrench & screwdriver to "test" it.
"See? Sparks pretty good. This one's got juice!"
Told him where to go & talked to his boss.
(Got another 'good' one from a different car without that guy's help)
😎
@@dannycasler4959 The guy that kept tapping the cables to the battery must have been clueless to the fact that every time an electrical connection is made there is a massive surge of energy. Doing that repeatedly as he was doing can and will destroy electronics in short order. It could have also caused the dead battery to explode as a dead battery can give off hydrogen gas. I've seen it happen before.
If you don't know about cars:
1. *Read the user's manual*. Many of the false alarms covered in this video are also covered in the user's manual.
2. At the very least, *check the fluids and the tire pressure every month*. That's a 10-minute job, tops.
And don't forget the spare, if you have one. A severely under-inflated, 10-year old tire is a dangerous thing. All the more so since it may look brand new...
When Wizard showed the convertible top race, when he said, "No way! They're identical! That's crazy!"
I was thinking, "Huh. Exact same time between two cars twenty years apart. Sounds pretty German."
I have done this for years,, get some BRIGHT finger nail polish, clean a area on the battery near the positive battery post,, paint a bold red + sign on it, and paint a mark on the positive wire ,, easy_peasy,, now. Never a mix up. Ron..
What is amazing about cars that don't get driven not having many miles?
I find amazing the guy that owns that 72 pickup he bought new and had maintained it to 400k miles.
what's amazing is that they still work at all, and aren't all seized up, leather dried out, wood split, leaks all over the place from dried out gaskets.
Classical "owned only by an old lady who kept it in the garage and barely drove it" syndrom.
What’s amazing is that the owners were able to keep the miles that incredibly low, since the main purpose of a car is to accumulate miles, and based on a low average of 10k miles per year, those cars should have over 100,000/300,000 miles.
My mom has a 2008 Honda Crv (she still has it. She named it Sailor Moon). We got it out of the factory, brand new and it was maintained well and we service her car every 6 months. It lasted us for 11 years but last 2011 my mom fell asleep on the wheel and wreck her car. Luckily, Insurance paid for the damage. The car hold up so well until now. It has some few problems like shocks needs to be replaced and engine support is broken. But still drives like a dream. This is why we decided to go to Honda because of its reliability and its comfort.
THANK YOU for showing us the nice MERCEDES
Great Video Wizard! The EXACT same thing happened to me with my 2011Nissan Versa two years ago. Was expensive to fix but luckily the ECU was not blow. Got it back on the road. It has been running fine since.
I love how Junior Mint shakes his head yes and no as Wizard asks his questions on what what went wrong with the car. Also can you make a video on the CL65 AMG next to the SL550.
A man of class I see. CL65 is a dream car for sure
My worst scare was exactly the same problem--blown main fuse. I was in a rush jump starting it and messed up the jumper cable on one end. That was the '97 CR-V. Crisis averted and it worked fine after a fuse replacement.
We have two of the CR-Vs (2009, same generation), and it would take a bit of force to get the harness pulled forward enough to connect to the terminal if the battery was flipped the wrong way. Also, the positive terminal on the harness is supposed to have a red plastic cover on it, which snaps down over the terminal after it is attached, so that is why it appears the cable is unmarked---the red cover is missing. The battery itself probably came with both posts covered, one with a red cover and the other with black.
Watch for shops that look up the wrong battery also. These CR-Vs use the 51R, the "R" being for reversed terminals. About 15 years ago, a shop sold me a 51 for my '97 and I noticed it was the wrong battery when I went to hook it up.
Blown main fuse. Seen it happen on other vehicles. Thought I’d be a genius and replace the alternator on a vehicle without disconnecting the battery. Positive lead hit the block, popped that main fuse right then and there.
Usually I don't disconnect the battery such a hassle to reset the radio and on Hondas and Acuras getting the radio code and the navi code. I just pop the positive off and flip my pair of gloves over it. Mind you I also have an electrical taped ratchet, socket, and extensions so they don't short out.
@@HimmelWeint lol just wright it down in your front page of a book
U are such a good dude David, I wish most mechanics are honest like you. God bless you and yours !!!!!
Hey thanks for the amazing content Wizard! I really love these videos when you go in depth and explain everything. Thanks a lot! Greetings from Latvia 🙂
Oh man. I did this one day on my parents 05 Forester many moons ago. I almost passed out. Sweet baby i was so relieved when i found there was a GIANT fuse that took the brunt of my accident and saved the day. Fired a new relay in and the car was fine until it was retired!
Wizard has such a soothing voice!
Hi Wizard . Makes my car look old . I have a 2001 996 Carrera 2 with X51 Engine and 33145 miles and I would say it is in the same condition as these . I purchased it in 2002 from Porsche in Germany and took it back to the UK where I am now based. It is nice to know that I am not the only one who enjoy taking care of my CAR .
The Wizard is busy! I hope his business continues to grow, this good man deserves it! :-)
My grandpa had a ‘88 SL560 with 11k original miles. He bought it new and only drove it once or twice a year. He sold it about two years ago to a collector so for as sad as it was to see her go I was happy it was going to someone who would take care of it. He actually changed the original tires before he sold it just because of dry rot. Definitely miss cruising with the top down.
He blew up the ECM! 🤘🤘I love the car wizards and his voice!! And Mrs. wizard too. 🧙♂️🤑🤑
OK I’m an idiot!!! I was wrong!! Fuse would’ve been my next guess!! 😂😱😎
@@drewbenefield2001 That's what I thought too, but I was hoping for a fuse.
Because the wizard tricked you in the title.
I'm an SL owner (R230 facelift) and I really appreciate this video!
Lovely those 2 Mercedes SL especially the '09. but i would love to see a quick look on that CL. i've seen that it has V12 badge on it, that is my dream car.
As all my students know one sure way to fry a chip is to put the power on backwards.
I always teach them to be extra careful about that. If the power is correct but a data line is hooked the wrong way it is no biggie once powered properly the chip protects itself from bad inputs ... but if the chip is powered wrong ... it more often than not dies. Just because the fuse was blown the ECU might also be blown ... it might have caused the surge - so looking for the update.
Benz owners:
Awesome have my car in a amazing shop!
Car Wizard: Let's race to see whos top is faster!!!
Hi Car Wizard. I have a shop specializing in BMW 7-series. So many clients have come in with a snapped tranchain. Almost everyone has the idea that the engine is "toast" but some of the BMW V8s have non-interference engines and then it is no problem with the valves getting destroyed. Maybe there are other people following you that would like to have this explained. Best regards from Sweden
I feel for him , he was being a proud papa and helping his girl , and probably got distracted or in a rush to do papa things , god bless the man haha it happens .
I love your Diagnosis videos Wizard!!! I learn so much from you!! I know its also a business thing for you, but I appreciate you sharing your knowledge with the world!!
Our Scotty has taught us all the answer. Car Wizard is strong with the force.
Kilmer is a joke anymore
best car youtuber channels imo (order does not matter):
car wizard, hoovie, doug, vehicle virgins, scotty, auto auction rebuilds
Car Wizard and Scotty Kilmer are two of my best favourite RUclips channels.
Just another awesome example to your commitment to service excellence, David. Your transparent, unequivocally driven attitude and professional background is legendary.
As an EE, I can definitely say there are ways to prevent this. Every module should be reverse battery protected, as well as load dump protected. If it did blow a module, the manufacturer didn't do their job.
need to mark that positive with red electrical tape
both lead and terminal need to be marked...
Or pay attention to the battery terminal sizes - they are quite different.
@@TonyRule not every model
@@P.A.C.E.automotive Yes. Every model.
Or look where the battery cable terminates. The positive goes to the fuse box and the negative terminates on the body or chassis.
same exact thing happened to me which is why i knew the answer immediately (gotta learn from your mistakes!). was working on my buddies' Mazda 6 when I reversed the terminals and tried to start it back up. luckily I didn't fry the ECM, just blew the main fuse (which was a pain to get to in the fuse box) and one or two interior fuses. Once I got them replaced, it fired right up to my relief.
Someone at the dealership I work at had mixed connections on a Mercedes Sprinter van. You better believe it got fried lol. Had to kick it to wholesale
Nothing but the finest/safest engineering I see. 🤣👌
Ok so the service department managed to cross hot and neg just how
Quite a few years ago I bought a CRV from an auction, it was perfect, only 2 years old 19k miles. Paid for it and got into the auction lot drive it off. Flat battery as it had been sat for ages. Kind people helped me jump it off, sadly in this car the live lead is not bright red, and they connected the terminals the wrong way.
Had it towed to the nearest garage. They told me everything is probably fried, but it turned out the main shunt fuse blew fast enough (exactly the same as here) and all was well. Very relieved! Honda should be fitting those giant red and back covers for the terminals.
I’ve always thought that it would be a great idea to make battery terminals in different shapes to avoid this very issue. I.e. positive round, negative square. That way, there’s no physical way to get them wrong.
Good show , Retired Auto tech, And I learn something. I retired in the Philippines and I have a 07 CRV Honda. Keep a open mine and you will always learn something New. I am from the States. Thank You.
"A customer makes a small mistake on his 007 Honda CRV..." James Bond must've settled down!
This is how I got my 2015 accord, got it in 2017, the battery died and they tried to jump it. They crossed the wires and the car give a small puff of smoke. They just sell it at a bargain, almost half of used market price. Stating they are positive that the computer died. I bought it, replaced the battery and the almost the same fuse for no more than $160, and I have a nice 2 years old accord with 12000 original kms. They don't even bothered to check on it to the dealer, believing the warranty will be void anyways. But I still have a year left on the warranty, used for the 15000 km service and free oil change. Served me well ever since.
As soon as you said battery hooked up backwards I thought probably just popped the main fuse
Yes, my first thought was a fuse. I'm not a master mechanic, just used to fix friends cars from high school and my own and over the years I learned a lot.
I'm gonna guess blown fuse since Honda probably thought of a fail-safe in case someone hooked the battery up wrong.
You think it be easier to have Color-coded tables or something. The fuse is good but you shouldn’t rely on it as your only line of defense. The guy should’ve been paying attention though buts it easy to get ahead of ones self.
Modern Honda's have a failsafe fuse to the main fuse box to prevent total blowout as well as a critical failure backup within the main fuse box itself. I've had this recently happen to my Mom, saved everything but the radio fuses.
lawnmowerdude there’s usually a red cover on the positive clamp. It’s missing on this car.
@@lawnmowerdude I'd not be surprised if it had a label out of the factory but it got lost somehow. Remember this is a 15 year old car.
my biggest oopsie, was a 93 f150 i was driving which i manual swapped (with a 4-speed manual out of an older truck, because i the e4od went screwy again), i had the bolts fall out that hold the trans to the bellhousing. was fun babying it back to the shop so i could jam some new ones in there. good coat of pipe dope, and they never fell out again.
The fuse is not widely available because they never blow.
Someone once said that a 50 cent fuse will be safe from blowing by burning up all the wiring first.
Every Honda distribution center has them. Every busy Honda shop gets a daily parts delivery .
Car wizard your method of going thru the diagnosis is a godsend, wayyyyy better education and in depth/informative
This sounds like me trying to work in my car....
You're the type to drain the transmission when trying to do an oil change?
Wizard! Don't forget you can get these fuses off scrap vehicles/u pull yards, had a Lexus where someone hooked up wrong polarity, fried main fuse, got a matching Toyota part number fuse same day from a u pull yard for a few bucks. Obviously as a business you and your customer would of course prefer new, but given it's not a sensor or complex electrical component, if you ever needed same day this would be an option. Also I'm sure you know about send off services that repair electrical components (many times it's could be loose solder joints, etc - I've repaired various porsche, mercedes and BMW electrical components on my own (LCM transistors, backlight transformers on S class cluster, HVAC control systems, etc (even repaired a $5000 wall oven at my lake house for virtually free as the control board had a solder joint broken). Anyways I'm sure you already know of these options and needed to provide the part as new/oem for peace of mind/liability but if in a pinch and you can't get something like this for weeks, you could at least consider using a used main fuse until a new/OEM one could be obtained. Anyways thanks for the vid, you're one of the most honest and humble people on all of RUclips 👍👍
Legend has it: when he was born, he used tools from his Amazon affiliates
No he birthed himself with tools he got from his amazon affiliate's
@@jeremyhanna3852 😂😂😂
A man in our office building used to drive a Bentley...TurboR I think but could be wrong about the model. One week it wasn't in the lot anymore. Asked him and he said that he had bought a new battery and the shop installed it backward frying his electrical system. Moral: Get a Honda with a fuse.
The negative and positive poles are different sizes that’s another hint
Anyway not much damage
Beware of ultra ultra low mileage. Local shop found a TRASHED engine from a little old lady that primarily used her car to drive to the end of her long driveway to get the mail...the engine oil never heated up...it was basically like having no oil at all.
Can we turn these Q&A segments into a choose your own adventure type deal? Like "if you answered A, skip to 13:00" and you show why the answer is wrong, and some comedic hijinx happen like the car catches fire.
I'm no mechanic, but as soon as I heard that he hooked it backwards, I'm like there goes the master fuse!
I used to assume the worst when I have car problems, but now I just start with the fuse box. I had problems with my cruise control, looked online, everybody's like clock spring clock spring clock spring, I checked the fuse box, the fuse was blown, it's fine. this means I have a bad ground or an exposed wire somewhere because it happened during a car wash.
Wow, you had me scared for the owner. Was thinking it was ecm.
Being an auto tech as well, we had something similar a few weeks ago. There was a 2018 Corolla that the owner tried to jump start the car using cables and reversed the polarity. We had to dismantle part of the main fuse block to repair a blown main fuse/fusible link. After we fixed that and a half dozen other fuses, we woke up about 7 computers with a scan tool. Just goes to show, simple can be costly.
13:11 tires are like new, but if they're older than 10 years, I'd be concerned.
if they'd never been mounted and stored properly, they could be fine. One thing to check for is weather cracking. That's a big indicator.
Some brands of barely worn old tires, at least in the past, had a tendency for the tread to get hard over time. Taking a left turn a bit fast at some busy intersection as a light shower started could become quite exciting.
If a steady diet of fast cornering over a few months brought no improvement in such a car's traction under bad conditions, new tires were usually the best, safest choice.
Yep, my 07 Honda only has 34,000 kms and has its original tires. Always garaged, no weathering/cracking. Lots of good tread left but hard as a rock. I avoid using the car on the hwy and in the rain. Time to replace them unfortunately.
And I LITERALLY started my wrenching career working on anything from F150’s to $90,000+ fully loaded King Ranch F-450’s. And yes, they have leather, heated and ac seats, 360 camera’s, moonroof, lane keep assist, etc etc etc.
My mom did this exact same thing to her 2012 accord. That fuse was so hard to find, I ended up finding it 60 miles away at an Acura dealer.
Any salvage yard in town would have a dozen of them.
@@OMGWTFLOLSMH Exactly what I was going to say literally any wrecker has at least a good 10-20 Hondas with the same fuse.
You’re an honest man most people with a fixed issues and told them it was the ECU...........$$$$$$$$$
He crossed the streams!
I have owned several Honda’s. All of them had color coded covers that went over the battery terminals: red for positive, black for negative. That CRV should have had those covers. Too bad somewhere along the line the covers were removed.
As for a “my bad” on a repair, the first time I did the brakes on my BMW, I reversed one of the brake pads. On the passenger side rear, I reversed the outboard pad, putting the metal backing plate on the surface of the rotor. Once I heard the metal on metal scraping, I knew I had screwed up. Fortunately, I caught it quickly enough so that the damage to the rotor has minimal.
LOVE the 2007-2011 CRV. I just got one a few months ago with 65,000 miles! My dad has a 08 and i had to have one after driving it. Really reliable machines
Agree. I have a 2010 with 259k miles and still going strong.
My mother has a 2011 CRV, 66,000 miles. It has never had any problems ever since she got it from the dealer in 2011. She’s kept the car visually in tip top shape, making the car look good as new lol. They really are great machines.
Good luck with your transmission if it's automatic.
The filter gets blocked and you CAN'T change it w/o taking the transmission OFF the car and splitting the cases.
Horrible design flaw. I'm currently rebuilding mine. 2 owner car, always looked after and still shit the bed at just 115k miles. 😒💩👎
They're great: If you want to drive an uninspired appliance.
MrCarGuy20 Don’t get it. It’s a car. It works, it’s not designed for car shows.
... "So I have bypassed that fuse"... @ 5:38. So, no current thru the fuse. The fuse was blown/ burned out. So from experience/ logic, you were safe to do no harm, by bypassing that fuse. That all makes sense to me also. Q: Were you sure that nothing else was damaged, at the same time the fuse blew? Just asking and not being a wise guy. PS: I paid a car aircon tech for his completed/ billed repairs. 10 minutes later, I arrived at the Mall. I smelled a strong smoke odor. Parked car, opened up the hood. My whole wiring harness had burned up or melted. WTF!? That aircon tech had bypassed a fuse with a metal coin. How'd I know? Black charred coin, still in fuse slot. D'oh! >A new visitor - Great vids Wiz!
Was there a shortage at the Honda factory with red positive battery cables and terminals?? I am LOL
No shortage at Honda
Some dum owner lost the pos cover during the crv transition
Most made in Japan have pos red plastic
Cover on the battery terminals
Have coloured felt around the post
To prevent corrosion and at the same time identify polarity
This crv was not well serviced
Or well maintained
@@cb400fhonda6 I just checked my Odyssey.. both battery cable are black.!! Yes, the positive just has a red cover on it. I wonder why Honda doesn't use red battery cables on the positive side?
I've got a 1994 GMC K1500 4WD Pickup... just turned 20,400 original miles over the weekend. The paint is worn due to being stored outside, however no rust or issues.
This is why you buy a high quality well engineered Japanese vehicle. If this happened on a Ford or GM- the wizard would be replacing modules.
A small domestic SUV from this era has long since been junked.
@@user-tb7rn1il3q only if it wasn't taken care of. There is no reason for a modern vehicle (domestic or otherwise) to not last when maintained. There are some exceptions of course.
I am fairly certain all vehicles have a main fuse. Besides, I'm pretty sure if one of the criteria you have for choosing a car is it surviving a battery installed with the polarity backwards you may have gone to far! :)
Honda really should have more than a red brittle plastic cap standing between a proper install and disaster. And I say that as an odyssey owner.
Mrdumbfellow Most failures are not because of maintenance practices (or lack of it). Sure if you don’t change oil you will eventually have lube failure, but there is no evidence that domestic owners abuse their cars more.
my 05crv still going strong~
I spent 15 years working as a mechanic at a local Chevrolet dealer, I had an S-10 pickup with a dead battery. I had a coworker charge the battery for me. Little did I know he recharged it with the charging cables reversed with the positive cable on the negative terminal and the Negative cable on the positive terminal. I didn't know it then, but when I reinstalled the cables, I watched in terror as the wiring melted from the battery to all the other wiring connections. Thank's to the idiot that charged the battery the wrong way, the dealership had to spring for a front wiring harness. I didn't mind that but I'm the one that had to replace it. Lesson to be learned-----ALWAYS, look at the + and the -- on the battery first, then check your battery to make sure some buffoon didn't charge it the wrong way. I left Chevrolet in 1998 and so happy, I suffered from mechanic burnout--I'm sure there's a lot of guys out there just like me that have just had enough of the madness.
That was a pretty surprising design oversight on Honda's part!
What was the oversight?
Can’t idiot proof everything
Sounds like they got the design perfect? It blew a fuse when he installed the battery backwards, not his ECM or other expensive electronics...the fuse did exactly what it was meant to do.
d2factotum
Good point
@@nickv4073 It's very unusual not to colour code the battery wires. Typically the positive cable is red.
Blown main fuse. It had happened to me.........lol. Feeling like an idiot. Easy fix. I check all the RUclips, but there is no one make a video for that. I towed it to the Garage. The guy fixed it and charged it for $500.00. Thanks for make such a video, u save people alot of money.
The owner really got luck that we have a lot of fuses that are there for a reason “save our lives”
1979 my brother gets his first vehicle, a mid 60s Econoline with a 289 so it's got some electrical issues, my brother decided to replace all the wiring and it takes about a month, puts the new battery in and goes to connect the same color main battery cables and the inside fills with smoke, so you guessed it he hooked it up reverse polarity and cooked some stuff, took a few weeks to fix it and then it had different color battery cables