2005 Impala Help
 

I am having a rather annoying problem that I think may be somewhat common with Impalas. When I start my vehicle, usually not the first start of the day, it is very sluggish to start up as if it doesn't want to. When it starts, there is a battery light and the gauges all come on, turn off and battery light and security light displays, and they turn back on almost immediately. My temperature gauge in my instrument cluster doesn't work- It hangs down at the bottom like it is broken. When the cluster seems to lose power, my headlights flash on and off. Sometimes it does it while I am driving which makes me wary of driving at night. My check engine light is also on.

I took it to a shop and at first they said it was a short in my instrument cluster so he replaced mine with a used one. That instrument cluster did the same thing. I took it back and he replaced the ignition switch and put my old cluster back in thinking it wasn't the cluster. The check engine light turned off once the ignition switch was replaced and I had no issue for about 2 days. I went to start my car and It was sluggish to start once again and the cluster did a quick on/off cycle again. For those two days it was fine, my temperature gauge worked fine until this problem came back. We didn't try the new ignition switch with a different cluster, just my old one. Could the problem with the cluster be causing the issue with the switch or could it be something else? I am in college and most of my classes are at night so I really need to get this fixed.

what codes does it have? how old is your battery?

P0140, P0401, P0141

Not sure how old the battery is, I bought the car used in November.

Faulty stepper motors in the instrument cluster is a very common problem on basically all Chevy's of the period.

Was the engine light on when you bought it? Regardless of that, all codes should be cleared and see what comes back and you'll know that's a valid issue and not something that just wasn't cleared by the PO. {FYI: P0401 = EGR; P0140, P0141 = O2}

The way you describe the electrical problem (with the lights) I would be leaning toward bad wiring somewhere. Make sure all your fuses/relays are in tight and grounds are clean and tight as well. BCM is up behind the pedals, make sure plugs are in tight.

For the record:
1) Turn key to position #2, "battery" & "security" toggle back and forth in the message center.
2) Turn key to start, everything shuts off while the engine starts.
3) Release key back to position #2 (engine running), message center should be clear.