Have a 95 Saturn SL1, my daughter tried to replace radio on her own. now car will not start turn key dash lights, radio, all come on but nothing turns under the hood where do i start to look?

if it is a stander pull the floor mats out of the driver side and try again

normally done with radio keys fit into slots and radio pops out
radio shack or your local dealer will have them

Sounds stupid, but could be bad battery conection. The car gets enough amperage to run the acceseries but not enough amperage to start the car. Clean and tighten the terminals. It cost nothing and will eliminate these connections as the cause if the problem persits.

Try charging the battery or jumping the car, your alternator could be shot and not charging the battery.

you have a wire gounding out somewhere. Take out the dam# stereo and get with the times and just get a MP3 player.

If the problem occurs after the car has been driven long enough to reach normal operating temperature, the problem is the starter. If the 'no crank' occurs cold, retest the battery.

If the starter motor will not crank the engine over first check the battery to see if it is fully charged. A volt meter across the battery should read at least 12.6V. If you do not have a volt meter, turn the ignition key on and check the rate of the turn signal operation and check that the headlight high beams are bright as normal. If the rate of turn signal flashing and headlights are normal, chances are the battery is charged and the problem is else where.

If TS and HD Lights are not normal, fully charge the battery. Then with the head lights on try to start the car. If the head lights dimm or go out, you have a bad connection in the wiring going to the starter motor or a bad battery. Clean the battery terminals and try again. If NG, have the battery load tested.

If after charging the battery and the car starts normally, the question becomes, does the battery run down because of a draw in the system or because the alternator does not charge the battery while driving. You can take to car, it is now running right? To any number of auto parts stores and they will check the battery and charging system for you in the hopes of selling parts.

If the battery and alternator check out, the battery is most likely being depleted over time by some accessory in the car pulling power when it should not be. This can be quickly checked by putting an amp meter in series with one of the batter terminals. It will show the rate of draw in AMPS that is the problem. Finding that problem is a process of elimination ( say by pulling fuses) until the problem goes away then examining the circuit that the problem occurred in. Most times it is the interior lights.

Good Luck!

if you have good battery voltage at this time, and when you banged on the starter and then the car cranked over, it would appear you have a defective starter. i would imagine if you replaced it in july of last year that it could still be under some sort of warranty, so i would look into that. either way, it sounds as if you need a new starter.

On my girlfriends sl1 the engine would not turn over at all and I took the starter off and it was fried! I replaced it and it started right away, but I never had a problem with the lights not coming on.