Posted: 10/27/2009 1:46:53 PM EDT
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Car is a 2002 Dodge Neon. Problem is it won't start. Classic dead battery clicking when you turn the key. Car will start with a jump. First time it did this I figured the wife left a light on or something and drained the battery, I drove over to the store and jump started it and all was fine. This was three weeks ago.
Last week same thing. It was in the drive way instead of the store parking lot so I put a multimeter on it. Battery had 12.5 volts. I checked all fuses and cleaned the battery terminals, still get the dead battery sound when I try to start it, it still starts with a jump. I found that the GPS my wife has draws voltage even when the car is off. I unplugged it and drove the car on the highway for an hour or so. Car ran fine again. Today got a call from the wife again. Car won't start. 12.5 volts on the battery. Haven't tried to jump it but bet it will fire right up again with a jump. Thankfully it was in the driveway and not the store again. I'm thinking it's the starter but don't want to pull it out if I'm way off base. It's under the headers right behind the radiator so if I do it, it will take a good bit of work so I want to be reasonably sure. Where do I go from here? Bad starter? Battery still? Something else? |
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I know exactly what your problem is...you own a Neon.
Battery's bad or something is drawing amps and drawing it down, if it was the starter it wouldn't start with a jump. My guess is you've got a bad cell in the battery and it's only getting 12.5 on a full charge. Bateries are cheap, throw an elcheapo new battery in there and see if that fixes it or at least have the old one tested before you go tearing it apart chasing gremlins. |
| Battery could be F'd and not have enough amperage to kick the car over, even if you're reading >12v. If you take it to any of the autozone style places they can do a diagnostic on your system and let you know if your battery is bad. This is a handheld item and takes literally two minutes. Starter sounds fine. |
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Quoted:
Since you have a voltmeter, check voltage at the small wire at the starter when cranking. You should have at least 10v. I'll give that a shot but it's tight to get in there to it. Plus it has plastic covers over everything. Quoted:
I know exactly what your problem is...you own a Neon. Battery's bad or something is drawing amps and drawing it down, if it was the starter it wouldn't start with a jump. My guess is you've got a bad cell in the battery and it's only getting 12.5 on a full charge. Bateries are cheap, throw an elcheapo new battery in there and see if that fixes it or at least have the old one tested before you go tearing it apart chasing gremlins. Don't get me started on the Neon issue. Wife bought it shortly before we got married without asking for input. It's actually been an ok car. Never had any issues until now, it's paid for, she got a good deal (ok a good deal for a Neon), and she likes it so I mostly keep my mouth shut about it except when I have to drive it. I was planning on pulling the battery and taking it in to work tomorrow. We have some testing equipment there or I can take it to Advance. It's a fairly new battery, only a year and a half old. Sticker says manuf. in 12/07. One of Advance's Silver line. I wonder if the heat and salt just got to it though. |
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Quoted:
Battery could be F'd and not have enough amperage to kick the car over, even if you're reading >12v. If you take it to any of the autozone style places they can do a diagnostic on your system and let you know if your battery is bad. This is a handheld item and takes literally two minutes. Starter sounds fine. The more I think about it the more the battery being the issue makes the most sense. Having that GPS constantly pulling juice plus the heat probably fried it. I may even have some warranty left on it. |
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Are your battery post connections clean and tight? It could be something as simple as a poor connection between a battery post and the clamp. When you attach jumper cables to the clamp, you're bypassing the poor connection.
Also, you might try measuring the voltage on the battery posts while you're attempting to crank the engine. If the voltage drops to almost nothing when cranking, the battery is at fault. OTOH, if the voltage only drops a few tenths of a volt, you've probably got a bad connection somewhere between the battery and starter. |
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Check for voltage loss on the cable going from the starter to the battery. I have owned four Neons, and two of them had battery cable issues repeatedly for some reason. On one of them the battery cable would corrode under the jacketing of the wire, where you couldn't see the green corrosion. The terminals and clamps looked great, but when I checked voltage drop it was excessive by a lot, had symptoms very similar to yours.
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Update, went to Advance today. Battery failed on the tester. They gave me a new one under warranty. I was kind of worried about that, I didn't buy it here and didn't have a receipt. They called the original store I got it fom though and they had me in their computer. So cost to me was time and gas to get there.
When you buy a battery there you automatically get a 24 month warranty. I bought it in Jan 08. The replacement came with a 6 month full replacement warranty and a 51 month pro-rated warranty. The price here was 87.99 which seems high. I'm pretty sure I didn't pay that much originally but everything in the keys is expensive. I put the new battery in and it starts on its own again. Hopefully that was the issue and everything is g2g from here on out. I'll be keeping an eye on it for a while. Thanks for the help all. |