I'm outside in the freezing cold today trying to figure out why my car won't start. It's an '89 corolla by the way. I won't go into detail since it's a different car, but after my fingers were nearly frozen, I discovered a bad ground connection at the engine block on the heavy cable from the battery.

I didn't just come across this by pure wit. I was trying to reach under the intake to get my test leads on the starter motor terminals (rear of engine bay....very cramped) I then discovered a completely melted connector on a very small ground wire between the pass-fender well and the engine. It seemed strange at first because why would the starter and ingnition be pulling current through that little ground wire??

I looked on the other side of the engine (actually the on the transaxle case) and there it was! that nasty corroded wire that I knew I should have replaced while the weather was good. I disconnected it, cleaned with a wire brush and reconnected it, problem solved.

the reason this threw me off was the bizarr symtoms: radiator fan and turn signal & high beam indicators turn on with ignition turned to START, no cranking....I was like WTF

looked at a Hayne's schematic and was still like...

the first thing I checked was the ignition switch. Most people I talked to said it was the likely suspect.

So bottom line: take some time to RE-GROUND the engine block, battery etc. before it has to be done in the freezing cold! It's such a simple and common problem.....remember, current flows from the negative side.

I know that a Toyota is not a thirdgen, but I'd like to point out that I fixed this car for free. If it was thirdgen I would have had to replace something