I am having problems with my car starting. On friday I removed the battery cables to clean them while I was at work and the car went dead on me. Turned out the battery was bone dry. I was able to get it jump started after putting some water in it and I replaced the battery after I got home. Since then I have been having no issues ( I made a sixty mile trip and a trip to Vegas and back which was about three hundred miles round trip). Yesterday I drove to work and drove the car during my lunch with no problems but after work I couldn't get it to start. I tried to get it jumped but it was drawing juice from the other car but not starting. I purchased a jumpstarter system and the car started right away with no problem (weird). It made it about two miles and died again. I rejumped it and made the trip home (sixty miles). This morning it's not starting again on it's own. Any ideas???

 

Is the battery good? Is your alt charging? Double check all your grounds.

 

Try removing the cables and cleaning them.

 

The battery seems to be good since it started righted again and the cables are clean I cleaned them on friday which is what seemed to start this issue. The battery gauge was reading normal on my drive home last night with no flucuations or problems(lights going dim or things of that nature). I have drive over 500 miles with no problems running the A/C and the radio since I replaced the battery.

 

Sorry, just reread that. Haven't slept this week. It sounds like you have a connection problem or maybe a bad alternator? When you can't start it, does it click or crank too slow or what? What is this jump start thing you bought? How does it hook up? Measure your batt voltage with car off, cranking, and car running. Might also think of having alt tested, it my be able to put out 12 or 13 volts but only 2 amps which wouldn't be enough.

 

this happend to me. turned out that my terminals were WAY corroted and was only getting a good contact sometimes, since then i have re routed my battery to my truck, in a seal battery box, keeps battery cool and clean, no air means no corrosion, try take all your connections loose and cleaning them very good with terminal cleaner and a wire brush and then clean the posts on your battery then replace them and tighten them good, see if that helps

 

The jumpstart thing that I have is one of those setups that is rechargeable andit has a sealed battery that puts out 450 amps to jump your vehicle without needing another car. It's like having a backup battery to get you running again. I has it's own cables that attach to your car like usual. When I used it my started immediately where it hadn't kicked over when trying to jump from the other car. His battery was older and didn't has the same cranking amps though so that might have been part of the problem.

 

Ok then, it seems that your batterry is not getting charged on its own can you measure the voltages?

 

check the voltage at the back of the alt. w/ the car running and then at the battery. they both should read around 14 v if not you could have a broke wire.(i had a wire just break in the harness i couldn't find and ended up having to run a hot wire from the alt to the batt.)