General Troubleshooting Information

General Troubleshooting Information



Intermittent Failures
The term "intermittent failure" means a system may have had a failure, but it checks OK now. If the Malfunction Indicator Lamp (MIL) on the dash does not come on, check for poor connections or loose wires at all connectors related to the circuit that you are troubleshooting.

Opens and Shorts
"Open" and Short are common electrical terms. An open is a break in a wire or at a connection. A short is an accidental connection of a wire to ground or to another wire. In simple electronics, this usually means something won't work at all. In complex electronics (like PCM's) this can sometimes mean something works, but not the way it's supposed to.