Hi everyone,
I'm writing to you all because we're having issues with our 65 000 miles 2017 Chevy Suburban and it feels like a small electrical gremlin that will ruin us just to find it.

Let me paint you the whole picture:
Last week, our Suburban started acting weird, flashing warning lights and so on. One day, it even refused to shut the engine off, for which I had to unbolt the negative battery post. After that, it refused to start a few times (starter ticking), but we managed to get it going with a jump from our other car. Sounds like a battery problem, right? Logical thing to do was to buy a new battery and replace it, which I did.

Now is where the weird things start : after putting in the new battery, still no start. Weirder still, the dash doesn't illuminate as it used to, no welcome graphic, all manners of warning lights on the dash appear (with warning messages on the screen), ext & int lights turn on, opens/closes on fob, etc. Sometimes, I can get the ignition into accessory mode, sometimes it's just completely dead. And to cap it all up, because it wasn't weird or annoying enough...the remote start works ! However, no way to "turn the car on" after starting it with the remote.

We've done a bit of troubleshooting :
- No fuse blown in interior fuse box or under hood fuse box
- No fuse loose either
- Ground is good because it starts with the remote
- Battery voltage is good because it's new (i've put a trickle charger on yesterday to keep it up after my many tryouts)

Has this ever happened to any of you and / or could you help me ?
I'm stuck and no Chevy dealer to help me over here, as we're living in Belgium...

Thanks,
Felix

 

Oooops - disconnecting a battery cable while the engine is running can damage an alternator......

 

Shouldn't the engine continue to run once started with the battery disconnected?

 

No. Alternator needs power to excite it. That was OK in the '60's with basic systems but not on today's computer sensitive systems and electric fuel pumps.
Sounds like this guy has an ignition switch issues since it starts on the remote but not by the key.

 

Basically, such "test" could be used on a GENERATOR-equipped vehicle without doing damage, but definitely a bad idea on an ALTERNATOR-equipped vehicle.