Something Electrical Stopped Working

One thing stopped working — a window, a light, the radio, a socket. This is usually far cheaper than people fear.

People hear “electrical” and think of an expensive, open-ended hunt. Sometimes it is. But a single dead accessory is very often a fuse that costs less than a dollar, and finding out takes about ten minutes with no tools at all.

1. What it probably is

• One thing dead — a fuse. The single most likely answer, and the cheapest.
• Two or three related things dead at once — still usually one fuse, because they share a circuit.
• Everything dim, or nothing at all — that is the battery or its terminals, not an electrical fault. See it won’t start.
• Lights dimming and brightening while driving, or a battery light — the alternator.
• One bulb out — a bulb. They are consumables.
• A window or lock that works from one switch but not another — the switch, not the motor.
• Something intermittent that comes back when you hit a bump — a loose connection or a bad ground. These are the ones that genuinely take time to find.
• Several unrelated things misbehaving at once — often a single bad ground rather than several faults.

2. The five-minute check

Check the fuse first, always. Ignition off. Find the fuse box — usually one under the dash on the driver’s side and one under the hood near the battery. The inside of the lid has a diagram showing which fuse protects what. Photograph that diagram with your phone before you start; it is far easier to read zoomed in than upside down under a dashboard.

Pull the fuse the diagram points at, hold it up to the light, and look at the metal strip between the prongs. Unbroken means good. A visible gap, often with a sooty smudge, means blown. Full walk-through: how to find and change a blown fuse.

Two more free checks. Look at the battery terminals for corrosion or a clamp you can twist by hand. And check whether anything else on the same circuit stopped working, using the fuse diagram — that tells you whether you are chasing one device or one circuit.

3. Can you fix it yourself?

• Fuse — yes. Under a dollar, ten minutes, no tools. The easiest job on this site.
• Bulbs — usually yes. Some headlights need a wheel arch liner removed first, which is fiddly but not hard.
• Battery terminals — yes. A wrench and a wire brush.
• Relays — often yes. They are the taller cube-shaped things in the fuse box, and you can frequently swap in an identical one from a non-critical circuit to test it.
• Anything behind a door card, a dashboard, or in the wiring loom — no. That is time-consuming diagnostic work, and it is worth paying for.

4. What a shop should charge

Job	At a shop	DIY parts
Find and change a fuse	$50–$120	Under $1
Bulb replacement	$25–$120	$8–$40
Relay	$60–$150	$10–$40
Clean or replace battery terminals	$40–$120	$5–$25
Electrical diagnosis, per hour	$100–$200	—
Window regulator or motor	$250–$500	$60–$180
Alternator	$400–$1,000	$150–$400

Electrical diagnosis is genuinely billed by the hour, because chasing an intermittent fault is genuinely slow. That is reasonable — but agree a cap up front. “Spend up to an hour and call me before going further” is a normal, fair thing to say.

5. What to watch out for

• Open-ended diagnostic time. The one repair category where the meter can run a long way. Always set a limit before they start.
• A part replaced to see if it helps. On electrical faults especially, ask what test identified the part.
• A whole wiring harness. Enormously expensive and very rarely the right answer on an older car. Get a second opinion before agreeing.
• A new battery for an electrical gremlin. Common, and often wrong. Ask for the load test result.
• Being charged an hour to change a fuse. Fair for finding a fault that keeps blowing one. Not fair for pulling a fuse out of a box and putting a new one in.

A starting point, not a diagnosis. See the disclaimer.