02 Sebring Sedan electrical issues

[talentrec]

Hi Everyone-

I could use some advice on my girlfriends 02 Sebring sedan. For the past month, it's been having a number of weird electrical issues. At times, the car won't start, other times, the battery goes completely dead (but the battery is fine) overnight, other times the radio doesn't work at all, sometimes the radio won't turn off. The fuse for the radio has blown once, but I replaced that and the intramittent problems persisted. We had it at the shop for a week, and the whole time everything worked fine. They couldn't find anything wrong. As soon as we got it home, the battery died and the radio stopped working again.

Anyone have an idea on what's going on? I'm starting to think we have a gremlin living in the garage....

Thanks,
Pete

[Oldengineer]

I had this problem on an 01 Sebring. Turned out that the connection that held the positive battery cable end to the underhood power distribution box had been overtorqued when they built the car and the threads stripped. Find the end of the short positive battery cable coming up from the battery and you'll see this connection. My fix - I put a fat steel washer under the big nut to get it away from the damaged threads, and, tightened it down. No more gremlins.

Hope this helps:
Oldengineer