Q: Someone attempted to steal my car and now I have a no crank no start issue

asked by on September 09, 2016

Someone tried to steal my car and every since that it has had start issues. The day that this guy attempted to steal my car I found the ignition on the seat and a flat head screw driver in my seat. I tried to start the car after fixing the ignition it started up perfectly fine and would shut off after 2 seconds but I found out how to solve that issue the sentry key immobilizer sensor thing was cut from the thief that's a easy repair just some soldering iron and some black tape. But before I could attempt that fix the car started to not crank or start. This is different. I tested the battery a couple of times and there was nothing wrong with it. I noticed when I first tried to mess with the battery I cant remember if it was before or after the car had a no crank no start issue but the negative terminal the one you connect to the battery made a big spark when I was loosening it from the battery "THERE WAS NO KEY IN THE IGNITION AT THE TIME SO THE CAR WAS OFF"

My car has 120000 miles.
My car has an automatic transmission.

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Hello. This is likely a sign of a short somewhere in the ignition circuit. Depending on what happened and what the thief tried to wire when trying to steal the vehicle, it would be hard to diagnose. Most likely while trying steal the car, during the process of trying to hotwire the car it shorted the ignition circuit somewhere along the way. The spark from the negative battery terminal has nothing to do with the key being in the ignition or not. Due to the level of difficulty in tracing a short, I would recommend having an expert from YourMechanic come to your car’s location to inspect and repair the wiring.

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