Was on the very first day I discovered my negative battery terminal with a very tight bolt was loose, removed it and filed that contact area so there would be a gap in it. Also greased the terminal to retard corrosion. Three years later get a letter that is a problem.
Radio also started flashing on and off, but not the traction. All those push buttons and switches you have fire commands to the BCM and ECU, but point contact relays in the underhood fuse/relay box do the actual power switching.
In my over 58 years experience in electronics and electric, a very poor practice, but was also well known some odd 60 years before my time. The most reliable switch contact is a sliding switch contact with a wiping action that helps to keep the contact clean. Your wall light switches in your home are made this way and last for years.
But a point contact switch, slightest bit of carbon due to arcing can prevent a good contact, and not only the Cruze, all new vehicles are made this way. My first guess was the ignition relay, tested that with high contact resistance, had to cut the cover off, and sure enough, carbon formed between those two silver alloy contacts prevent a good connection. Cleaned that off and okay again.
A far superior material to use is tungsten, has a much higher melting point than silver, but a sliding contact relay would be better yet. We use to be very critical on items like this on say your headlamp switch, large sliding contacts. But with DRL's, these idiots are using tiny made in China point contact relays, and the ignition switch, supposing rated at 45 amps is a joke with extremely small contacts.
So you wonder why you have problems, perfectly obvious to engineers that been around for awhile. And sure doesn't help to have a mechanic good at installing an exhaust system to even attempt to solve problems like this.
Radio also started flashing on and off, but not the traction. All those push buttons and switches you have fire commands to the BCM and ECU, but point contact relays in the underhood fuse/relay box do the actual power switching.
In my over 58 years experience in electronics and electric, a very poor practice, but was also well known some odd 60 years before my time. The most reliable switch contact is a sliding switch contact with a wiping action that helps to keep the contact clean. Your wall light switches in your home are made this way and last for years.
But a point contact switch, slightest bit of carbon due to arcing can prevent a good contact, and not only the Cruze, all new vehicles are made this way. My first guess was the ignition relay, tested that with high contact resistance, had to cut the cover off, and sure enough, carbon formed between those two silver alloy contacts prevent a good connection. Cleaned that off and okay again.
A far superior material to use is tungsten, has a much higher melting point than silver, but a sliding contact relay would be better yet. We use to be very critical on items like this on say your headlamp switch, large sliding contacts. But with DRL's, these idiots are using tiny made in China point contact relays, and the ignition switch, supposing rated at 45 amps is a joke with extremely small contacts.
So you wonder why you have problems, perfectly obvious to engineers that been around for awhile. And sure doesn't help to have a mechanic good at installing an exhaust system to even attempt to solve problems like this.
