apeterman

So i went to my championship softball game today and we won so now we are the post champions. Which is awesome. So we have a few beers after the game and I go to start the stang and nothing. So I thought it was my alarm system. Nope. Then I look at the battery gauge and its reading like it usually does half way between normal and low. The umpire pulls up and jumps my car with a jumper box. Starts up fine.

So I go to AutoZone before they close and have the starter, alternator and battery checked. All check out and he says maybe the starter. It has been starting kind of hard for a little bit. But only after sitting for a long time (+8 hours). I had a bunch of corrosion build up on the positive terminal and some on the negative. So we cleaned up the terminals with battery cleaner and hooked her back up and no problems starting, but it only sat there for 15 minutes.

I have a 460 watt amp with 1 12" sub and a 7 inch in dash screen. The alternator is only about 5 months old.

My question is what causes battery corrosion? I know the battery is old. The sticker on it says JUL with a stamp on 8. The sticker reads from 1 to 9. I would assume new batteries are 01 to 09, but not for sure. Does a stater just quit all of a sudden? A friend o mine had a starter going bad for a while before it quit.

I am letting it sit overnight and see what happens in the morning. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks guys.

JC316

Usually a starter will show signs of going out. It will be slow to turn the engine over when hot. They can die all of the sudden, but it's not likely.

cliffyk

It's almost 100% likely that it's the battery, a weak cell--under light load it can read near 12.6V but under heavy load the voltage falls too low to crank the engine. My '03 did this a year ago, in between stops on a Saturday morning shopping trip--at Ace Hardware it just would not start, got a new battery and it fired right up and has been fine since then.

Check the voltage while cranking (or attempting to crank it over)--if it falls much below 11.0V then the battery is dieing/dead.