Here's my long running soap opera story so far: Last year, for no apparent reason, my alarm started to go off some minutes after the car was locked. Pulling the alarm relay from the electrical panel solved that issue - I wasn't too concerned as I don't really need an alarm. Then a couple months later while I was taking a right hand turn at a light the car died and a few wisps of white smoke started coming out of the air vents. Nice! I coasted to a stop at the side of the road with visions of flames coming out of the dash dancing in my head, but that was the end of the drama. I waited a minute, tried starting the car and it fired right up. A couple of days later this happened again, and again the car started up and behaved normally.
The next weekend I took the car out and drove it around for the day with no issues. In the evening I stopped to grab some Chinese for dinner. Trying to start the car, it cranked but didn't start. I tried again. It cranked but didn't start. On the third crank I was greeted with white smoke from under the dash. Then more smoke. Then MORE smoke! The smoke kept coming for about a full minute while I tried to locate where it was coming from. Lifted the passenger side carpet. Nothing from the DME area. Ok, that's good. Opened the hood - no smoke at all in the engine compartment, so it isn't the starter/alternator/battery cables. The smoke died down, thankfully with no flames evident, and I was able to click the key over one position and get the windows down to vent the smoke and smell without having to have the doors open. Had the car towed home.
About a month ago I had the car towed up to my repair guy, who has graciously accepted the job of tracking down the electrical problem. After some weeks of poking around (removing the dash was necessary to be able to see what he needed to see) the damage looks to be confined to the passenger side airbag control module, the alarm module and their corresponding wiring. It looks like at some point well before I owned the car, either water or coolant got into that area (some white residue is evident, and he discovered that the gasket underneath the HVAC blower assembly just in front of the windshield was/is missing - might be relevant!) wetting the wiring and connectors, and it took this long for the resulting corrosion to finally cause a meltdown.
As soon as my tax refund arrives, I will be sourcing replacement parts from Darryl's parts car. We'll get them installed, get the dash buttoned back up and see if the car starts. THEN I can get back to all my other previously scheduled fixes-repairs-modifications! Stay tuned...
