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I have a 2008 Mazda 3 that doesn’t always starts (no crank/no start). Dealership found “ALT charging at idle 15.0 volts, 13.4 full charge battery, room fuse circuit has a draw. Traced draw to passenger side junction box. Internal failure relay stuck closed causing draw on battery.”
Question: Will replacing the relay box fix this issue or do we have to change the entire junction box?
Dealership wants more than 1K to fix. Is there any other alternative?
Thanks Ani
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Will replacing the relay box fix this issue or do we have to change the entire junction box?
just replace the sticking relay. 🙂
This means they just traced the draw to the “room” fuse in the engine bay’s fuse box, which led them to the PJB/BCM. I would first verify they did due diligence in diagnosing this by removing all the PJBs fuses, cleaning up any noted corrosion of the contacts to the PJB, and the draw was still there first of all.
The relay box you speak of is, if correctly diagnosed, internal to the unit. You can replace it by pulling it apart, finding the appropriate one, and doing some re-soldering work, but the dealer does NOT do this. Ever. At all.
As this car is no longer under warranty I would feel no obligation to take it to the dealer, if you know of any local good mechanics/shops. You do have alternatives, I’m unsure of how much brighter they may be depending on where you are.
This is the secondary brain of the car, controlling just about anything and everything non-specific to the running of it. A couple of google searches on “mazda 3 PJB” will yield a lot of issues and how they were resolved. I think the common issue is condensation making it on the contacts or in the unit causing intermittent issues. There may be a TSB for this specifically, if someone else might be able to track it down for that year. As you may want to do more than just replace the faulty unit depending upon the cause.
Thank you for the responses. After extensive searches on youtube etc., I have not been able to find “how to” for this issue, I opened the fuse box under the glove box did not find a “relay switch” … any instructions on how to replace the correct relay…would be greatly appreciated before I have to pay yet again another diagnostic at another mechanic…help… 🙁
P.S. I’m located in Waldorf MD if you know of any tech savy folks my way…
Thanks in advance.
Ani,You won’t find one. It’s internal to the unit. You’d have to pull it out, take the plastic casing off, and trace the circuit down:
Realistically, this isn’t going to happen by you. No matter what you decide, if you’re having this much trouble locating and interpreting what the dealer found, you don’t have the skill set currently to fix this.
You’re either looking at replacing this whole unit yourself with a new or used unit, then getting a dealer to flash it to work correctly, or finding someone with this skillset locally to do the circuit repair for you on your existing unit.
You can find used ones easily via salvage yards, and on ebay, but you’d want to have some small warranty if you go this route, as you might get a similar issue from a salvaged piece. New will run around $600. In either case you’ll need to verify the part # is correct for your year, make, and options. The part # should be listed on the side of it much like the photo above.
[quote=”Wayne613″ post=91960]You won’t find one. It’s internal to the unit. You’d have to pull it out, take the plastic casing off, and trace the circuit down:
Realistically, this isn’t going to happen by you. No matter what you decide, if you’re having this much trouble locating and interpreting what the dealer found, you don’t have the skill set currently to fix this.
You’re either looking at replacing this whole unit yourself with a new or used unit, then getting a dealer to flash it to work correctly, or finding someone with this skillset locally to do the circuit repair for you on your existing unit.
You can find used ones easily via salvage yards, and on ebay, but you’d want to have some small warranty if you go this route, as you might get a similar issue from a salvaged piece. New will run around $600. In either case you’ll need to verify the part # is correct for your year, make, and options. The part # should be listed on the side of it much like the photo above.[/quote]
You are awesome. Thanks for the info!
To the original poster, please keep us posted on how things work out for you.
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