GenVibe - Community for Pontiac Vibe Enthusiasts

I could use a little help. My AC socket has no juice. The switch turns on the indicator light but there is no juice at the socket. It was like that when I bought the car.

I found a wiring diagram of a Matrix on the net but the colors don't seem to match and quite frankly electrical wiring is not my strong suite. I bet i can figure it out after taking almost everything apart but i hope I don't have to do this.

My car has an aftermarket remote start built in. There are no other modifications to the electrical system. My thinking is that the professional installer did what professional installers like to do: get their stuff working and mess up something else. I found a loose white wire that is thicker than the rest of the wires. Maybe some one knows where it belongs. Please have a look at the pictures. We are under the dash by the brake pedal.

Have you tried testing it for power when the key is on or anything?

Is it possible the AC inverter itself is dead?


I mean... where is the cable from the switch to turn on the inverter? Have you traced that cable?

Why would they run a power wire colored white

It looks to me that the white wire is probably one that someone has pulled in (added) because the gauge of the wire does not match any of the other wires. I take it that this is the wiring schematic you have:
The right side of the drawing is power to the inverter. There is another fuse and relay that is different from the indicator light power that you see coming on. You need to check voltage at the relay. Do you have voltage into and out of the relay when it is on? Voltage should be battery DC voltage at this point in the system up to the inverter. If you have the DC voltage to the inverter and no AC 115 voltage out: then the inverter is bad.

Thanks, guys!

Indeed I have the diagram that jolt posted. It also seems true that the white wire is part of the aftermarket remote starter that was not needed in this application. I had trouble locating the fuse box. It was hidden by the brains of the remote starter. I moved it out of the way and finally found the fuse box. Next thing was finding the relay. It's above the glove box hidden from sight. I can feel the relays by hand. They are different sizes. I jiggled them and made sure they sit properly but that did not result in power at the outlet.

That is how far I got and when I have more time I can check/replace the fuse and relay.

The inverter is located under the drivers seat. Might just be unplugged.

Thanks again to all who chime in.

One thing could help me: there are 3 relays above the glove box, 2 blue ones and 1 black one. The black one is a bit larger. Which of these 3 is for the inverter?

TIA

I can not give you a direct answer on that but this may help you. Look at the wiring going into the relay base. From the wiring drawing, you can see that the relay is hooked to the four wires colored red, green/white stripe, green, and white/black stripe. Find the one relay that is plugged into these colored wires and you have it.

The inverter is shown under the drivers seat along with the ABS deceleration sensor. It look in the manual that the bigger one is the invertor. You did check for power to the invertor under the seat first, as that would be the easiest thing to check first, right? Watch your wire colors as show in the schematic.

Thanks, jolt!

I must have a short, most likely in the inverter itself. The 15 A fuse under the dash keeps blowing out. I pulled all 3 relays and swapped them with relays from the under hood fuse block. So they are known good ones. The fuse still blows.

So, unplug the inverter under the drivers seat and put a fuse in it and see if the fuse now holds. If the fuse holds, then most likely the invertor is bad and the wiring/relay is good. If the fuse still blows with the inverter unplugged, then you have issues with the wiring being shorted.

Thanks, Jolt!
Fuse is fine with the inverter unplugged. I will be shopping soon.