No sure what is happening here and would appreciate any advice I can get. My son borrowed my car last week and when he was driving it it just quit on him. He was unable to get it to start so he had it towed to my house. Here is what it is doing. If I disconnect the battery cables and reconnect them then everything electrical works on the car until I attempt to start it. When I turn the key to start it there is a loud single snap and the all the power goes dead. I can restore the power by disconnecting the battery cables and reconnecting them.

I checked the oil in the car and it was about 2 quarts low but not enough that I think that caused a problem. I also tried to turn the engine by hand using a large wrench and was not able to. {going back to my high school days when you could do that to an engine - not sure it works on the new ones of not}.

Again any help is appreciated.

 

The wrench will still turn todays engines if you have access to the crank bolt. If you caqn not budge the engine, it id probably locked up. You may want to remove the starter and see if it will turn aany. Or remove the spark plugs in case it is hydro locked.Good luck.

 

The starter on this car looks pretty well buried. How much effort is involved in removing it. And what is a Hydro Lock?

thanks for your reply

 

The starter is not all that difficult to remove. Jack it up and use jackstands. The hydro lock is when a cylinder gets filled with liquid and can not move the engine because the liquid can not compress and makes the engine lock in place. Hopefully yours is just a shorted starter. Good luck.

 

when was the last time you did anything with the oil because if it was 2 quarts low for a long time it probbably wasn't helping because that is about a 4 1/2 to 5 quart engine and with it missing 2 quartsI would wonder where it were it all went and is something else wrong.