Power sockets don't work

[iskuo]

My wife tried to use her hair dryer in a power inverter plugged into the front power socket and now neither that one or the one behind the center console work.

I checked the fuses and they seem fine. Any other ideas on what it might be?

[flnycus]

was the engine turned on?

[Bill_de]

If you checked them both with the inverter, maybe you burned out the inverter. Hair driers draw a lot of current, often more than these inverters are designed to handle.

[lion9mdx]

She tried to draw at least 100 amps through a circuit that's rated far lower, so certainly something melted or blew here. Did you actually replace the fuse or just look at it? Although I don't know about the MDX specifically, my understanding is that cars often have fusible links elsewhere in the wiring for extra safety, so the next step is to see if one of those blew. If not, you'll probably need to start testing the wiring to find out what's still live and what isn't, in case the wiring itself was damaged.

[skinny2]

My wife's hairdryer says "2,000 watts". Most vehicle power ports max out at around 200 watts. Bingo! What was the inverter rated? Just curious!

The only thing that should have happened is a blown fuse but finding the exact fuse may be the problem. There could be one ahead of the fuses you checked so I'd do some more digging. Unless someone put a whopper of a fuse in there by mistake (rated far higher than the plug and wiring)...there's no reason anything else would be ruined.

[Bill_de]

If the inverter was rated lower than the fuse ...

[iskuo]

Thanks for the help guys. The car was on and the inverter still works (checked it in another car). I checked the "ACC" fuses with one of those fuse checker thingys and they're good. I'll go through and check the rest of them one by one and report back.