The truck that lightning struck... sorta

The internet is full of pictures of what happens when a vehicle gets hit by lightning. This is one such example I was able to find. The truck in question for this post was indirectly hit.... The camper it was connected to was struck by lightning during the night. A harrowing experience for sure but no one noticed what happened to the truck... While they processed the insurance paperwork for the damage done to the trailer no one bothered to see if the truck still started or ran. That came later when they needed to leave the camp to run some errands.

Apparently when the lightning hit it did not just kill the electrical systems... it did something truly strange. You will see what I mean when I start explaining the process of diagnosing this strange situation. This was the only time in my life that I had ever experienced what lightning could do to a vehicle first hand nor had even heard about something like this even being documented before. Never in my life had anyone ever been like we got this vehicle in that was hit by lightning and this is all what went on with it. That could make one hell of a viral video in the diagnostics world. There is still more information not on the internet then there is on it as well as tons of pages lost from servers going offline/by people never sharing their hard won knowledge (apocryphon) like I am trying to do here/to history itself...

We get calls from the campground near us all the time during their busy season. Most of the time its relatively common stuff but occasionally we get some real thinkers. In this case we heard that a camper was having trouble with their vehicle no starting when they went to move the trailer. It was not until we started working on the vehicle that we realized that obviously something strange going on with this vehicle. It is just such an odd story that there needs to be some clarity on just how we went about ultimately figuring out and fixing the vehicle.

This 2009 GMC 1500 seemed to be just like any other no start issue towed into the shop. Often times something simple that the customer thought they ruled out: vehicles that need batteries because they could not jump start it with cables that poor quality jumper cables, tow truck drivers who did not know what they were doing (thought for another post lol) or even simply not leaving the cables on long enough for these "smart" alternators to actually start charging on their own. In this case the battery was stone cold dead and appeared like it had spent a great many years where it was sitting. This was the moment we realized something truly bazar had happened to this vehicle.

We strapped a new battery in place and hooked up the jumper cables. Immediately the vehicle starting cranking over continuously even without the key in the ignition and there was a strong smell of fuel. Evidently, when the lightning struck the camper or ground near the camper the vehicle (while still being attached to the trailer) was effected in just such a way that the engine started cranking over and ever single fuel injector started "firing" as if the vehicle was attempting to start itself. It ran like this until it destroyed the batteries ability to hold a charge. Amazing...ly complicated problem we have on our hands here. Where do you even begin? Obviously the customer must know more about this problem so off to the phone's we went.

Fast forward past the lightning strike, the serious electrical damage to the trailer and the discovery that the truck was still hooked to the trailer. Fast forward past punching in "lightning strike" on Identifix and spending some time on google. The fact the truck did not have any visible damage was incredible... although all of this was not very helpful. We were not just looking for an issue defined and confined to a single system like a check engine light typically gives you. This was a no check engine light, no communication with modules, a great many blown fuses/relays, did all the wiring in the truck melt together.... type of problem that certainly was not going to be figured out in an afternoon. Ultimately it took a week between coordinating with mobile programming business that has factory diagnostic computers alongst others, finding parts and working through the problem systematically.