My mothers 95 Regal with the 3.8 flat out will not start. In-fact the car will not even go into the on position. The key will physically turn, but no dash lights come on, no security light ever, nothing. The interior lights and door chime do come on after inserting the key in off position, but nothing in the on or start position.

So far this is what I have done to try and remedy the problem:

I have checked every fuse possible under the hood and every one of them look great, no corrosion, nothing.

Ground cable is tight, secure and free of corrosion.

Battery is fully charged and connections are tight

Checked all wiring to ECU under the hood. All free of cracks and corrosion.

Replaced ignition switch (really thought this was the problem) nothing.

Jumpered starter directly at solenoid and engine does turn over but does not start.

At this point I may advise her to just junk the car, but maybe there is an expert or 2 on here that can point me in the right direction. I'm a VW/Audi specialist and have gone over every component I can think of that would keep this thing from starting but I'm starting to lose my patience. The only thing I can think of is some sort of wiring problem.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

A typical problem is battery cables. You need to remove both, and clean both ends really good. Also pull the boots back and check the cables. Check for battery voltage at the other end. When corroded it will let enough threw to turn on lights, but not turn over. There are some tests in techinfo/testing, you can find that on the sites main menu.

Thanks for the reply Dan!

I will read up on the techinfo/test section.

As for the cables, I will check at the other ends as I have not done that yet. Whats weird however is, the interior lights are the only ones that come on. The headlights, turn signals, and tails do not operated.

It'* almost like once the key is in the ON position the car goes dead.

That sure sounds like the cables are corroded.

I didn't physically remove them, but they looked very clean on inspection. I supposed I'll take the ground off at the transmission and take a wire brush to it.

The alternator lead will be clean however as I replaced that this past summer and cleaned it then.

One thing I forgot to mention is that this all started when the car just randomly died while driving.

At that point the car would intermittently start and at that point I had checked the alternator to see what type of voltage it was putting out and it was exactly to spec. The fuel system checked out as well.

Don't forget, one positive cable goes to the alt, the other one goes to the starter. Corrosion between those two cables is where the problem is most times.

Interesting. Alright well I'll physically remove that one and clean it up if need be and replace if necessary. This lead would keep the car from going into the on position and make it die in the middle of operation even though the battery was fully charged?

It would make sense that the battery dead would be run dead if that connection was not made at the alternator therefor not recharging the battery no?

I know firsthand what kind of weirdness that corroded battery cables can cause, but this is just too strange, even for me.

Being a 1995, do you have a spare ECM that you can drop in? I know the Bonnevilles of that year had computer failures like wildfire; wouldn't shock me if the Regals were affected, too.

One morning I started my car, I then started pulling out of the garage and it died. Popped the hood and cleaned the cables, car started and off I went.

Unfortunately no, I don't have any spare parts for this car. I figured the dash lights would still come on if the ECM was dead?

I like the way you think Dan. Check the simple things first. I'm going to unbolt all of them and give a good cleaning, but they looked clean so that'* why I hadn't bothered outside of the connections at the battery itself.

I'll report back tomorrow with my findings. Keep the suggestions coming if you think of anything.

Thanks for the support so far guys.