Oh my god, wtf...car shuts off when I turn on headlights
 

oh my god, if its not one thing its another...

well, here is the latest...it started one day when I drove home from work and while im driving, everything shuts off (lights, radio, cluster, etc.) as I merge to the right everything powers up again...

I exit and drive again, it shuts off again but I can still drive and accelerate with no lights, radio, cluster, etc. and as I pull into my driveway it starts again...not wanting to deal with it as I have an e39 daily driver, I let it sit for a few days.

today I start the ti up, and everything is fine, I pull the headlight knob and it cuts off...

I take out the key and there is a constant "dinnnnnnnng" noise as if you have your door open with the key in the ignition, but there is no key.
trying to stop the noise I put the key in and turn it and noise goes away, take out key noise comes back...

I pull the headlight knob to the on position and the noise goes away...

now I cannot start car, there are no dome lights, or trunk lights...

I know its an electrical problem, but where do I start???

I tried unplugging the headlights completely and it still does the same thing...any input??? thanks in advance

check your battery connection. sounds like you might have a lose terminal

thanks angel318ti for the reply, but I checked the battery and everything seems fine. all fuses are fine to. I suspect its a bad ground somewhere, but I dont know where to start.

the damn constant "dinnnnnnnng" wont stop unless I pull the headlight knob to the on or parking position...thats how it is now

car still wont start and there is no power to anything

it def seems like a bad ground , or broken wire issue.

check your battery again, and make sure the terminals are clean. double check your fuses.

then take a mutli-meter, and turn it to the ohms settings. touch the one terminal on the Negative batter terminal, then the other on any unpainted bolt or unpainted metal under your hood. it should read 0 Ohms on a digital reader (or the same thing it reads when you touch those to leads together.)

if it does not, u have a bad ground. you might also want to follow those wires, and replace the ground when it connects to your car (or just buy 4awg wire and a self tap screw, and make your own.

thanks for all the input...It was a bad ground.

For anyone who had this problem and wondering, I fixed it by tightening the loose ground by the fuse box underneath the hood. Previous owner had a bootleg sound system in it and I disconnected all of that, but I guess one of the grounds he used I didnt tighten fully all the way down...after tightening everything works!!!

Is this page only for BMW's ??? Well if its not, i got a 2004 honda that i havent drove for like a year. I start it up like 1 every week or two. My car wouldn't start any more and i knew that i needed a new battery cause the battery i had wasnt good cause i had to keep on jumping the car. Now i put in a new battery and i still had to jump start it. i let it run for like 25-30 minutes without the jumping cables. Once i tried turning on the headlights my car turned right off. Could you guys please help me out with this problem. I hope its nothing major cause i dont really got the money to fix it.

it is, but I'll try to help anyway ;)

sounds like it might be a bad ground, fixing the ground shouldn't be too expensive, it might just be corroded and you could get away with cleaning it real good