Hello again, I hope everyone had a good holiday. I went on a 5 day vacation to see in-laws for Christmas. I came back last night. I go out to my car this morning to take it to a electrical specialist for my headlight. My battery is dead. I had it charging for roughly 40 minutes and it has zero power. The only 2 things I can think of is the battery and the alternator.

My my wife told me I have a nose for picking cars that are pieces of crap and I'm starting to agree with her.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

A bad alternator should activate the bad charge indicator in the dash, so it's probably the battery.

Do the interior lights go on? If not, look for a bad battery clamp connection (looseness or corrosion).

If yes, get a new battery (if the current one is older than 3 years old, it was on the way out anyway) and have the tech check for excessive draw on the battery 1 hour after the car has been turned off.
The HFL/Bluetooth is set up to stay on 30 minutes after the car is turned off; they tend to fail by not turning off (and continuing to draw power).

G/L, and welcome to AZ.

 

Nothing is coming on. The battery is new and the clamps are good. There isn't any corrosion on the connections or posts.

 

No interior lights, no headlights?
Got a multi-meter? Check bat voltage.

 

Slight update. Changed out the battery with a known good battery. I still have zero power to the vehicle.

 

Take a look under the hood, fuse box #22 100 amp battery fuse
and #23 IGI 50 amp fuse.

 

Will check in the morning ran out of day light today.

 

If it isn't one of the fuses Turbonut mentioned, check the ground end of the negative battery cable to confirm that it is properly grounded.
Also check the positive battery cable behind the clamp for corrosion under the sheathing.

 

I checked the fuses and they look intact, I didn't notice any corrosion on the wires and I'm not sure what properly grounded means. I haven't done anything with the battery cables besides take them off bad battery and put them on a known good battery.

 

Somewhere, there is an electrical path that is broken.

Using your multi-meter, test the following:
- Red to Positive post of battery, Black to Chassis (confirms if the ground cable is connected from battery to chassis)
- Red to Positive post clamp, Black to Chassis (confirms that the clamp is making proper connection to post)

If those two pass, the next test would be finding another place in one of the fuse blocks to connect the Red to. I don't know that much about our electrical systems and what is easily available to get at with a multi-meter. "Usually" it is related to the post clamps or the battery itself having issues. If those are testing out ok, then the fusible link or something else major in the fuse blocks are what come to mind.

 

Make sure the negative cable is tight on the chassis/frame end. If it is loose, it's not properly grounded- not a rare problem in the 3G TL. Best to check continuity per Jackass' advice, even if the ground end is tight.

 

Updates, used a multimeter to check fuse and everything is good. Checked all my interior fuses and they were all blown, replaced them. Now I'm still not getting power to start my car though when I turn it over the anti theft alarm goes off. Some of the fuse have blown again.

 

The vehicle was not experiencing any of this behavior prior to your 5 day vacation? Where was the vehicle parked during your time away? My only assumption is a rodent chewed up some wires causing a electrical short which explains why so many fuses were blown and blew again after replacing them.

 

The vehicle was parked at my apartment complex. The only prior issue was the headlights not turning on.

We checked out the wires that we could follow and we didn't find any that have been chewed through.