The cigarette lighter socket in my Civic is falling apart. Being the testosterone filled tinkerer that I am, about a week ago I took apart the dash to take out the socket to replace it. I took it out, looked at some wires, took some stuff apart, and came to the conclusion that it was too complicated a task for my puny brain. I tried starting the car, just to be sure, and the car was dead. Apparently messing with the cigarette lighter socket without studying anything angers the car gods. I scrambled the wires back together, put the dash back together, and after a few tries, I got the car to start again. A week later, after a day of not driving, it has died again, and no amount of scrambling and wire cobbling is getting it to go again.

A couple details:
-The ignition is clicking but not turning over
-The battery isn't dead - the dome light still turns on.
-I have an aftermarket stereo system that could be messing with the wiring.

Help? Please?

 

Does the dome light stay on while you try to start? If not it's probably bad connections at the battery. Also the key switches go bad. If automatic it could be the neutral switch, or clutch switch / relay on a manual. The lighter and stereo shouldn't have anything to do with it unless you took a lot of other stuff apart.

 

The dome light requires just a tiny fraction of current to stay on, whereas your starter draws lots of current. Take the battery out and have it charged and load-tested. I have a feeling that your battery was weak to begin with.

 

So if it's a bad battery, how would that explain it struggling to start up a week ago?

 

Yes. The first sign of a dying battery is not being able to start your car after having the door open for a while or leaving the radar detector on all night.

Of course, if the battery terminal connector(s) is loose at either end, the battery may not receive a full charge. So if you find that this is the case, then the battery may just need a full charge. Still, if you take it in to get it load-tested, you'll know whether it's the battery or something else.