Won't start :(

Two weeks ago: got in, very slow start, but succeeded.

Last week: unable to start, but lights came on, turning key resulted in a few partial engine-turn attempts, then nothing but clicking.

Jump start worked ok, took it to Firestone who claimed the battery and alternator was fine... (though I got them to order me a new battery since mine was under warranty)

Today: totally dead, no lights, clock set itself to 12:00, jump start did nothing, won't make a sound or flash a single light.

Any idea the source of my issue? I recently stopped driving it to work, so it sits unused M-F. Not sure a coincidence.

Start with a battery. The check alt output with a multi meter.

I used a voltmeter and though I'm no pro with it, it appears I only got a 6V reading off my batter. So I take it there's my answer?

When I got it jumped last weekend, I had a 20 minute drive to Firestone who said the battery was fine. My question to them was "ok, but is that just because the alternator charged it on the way here?" They didn't directly answer my question but blabbed in circles around it.

Just replace the battery and call it a day my friend. It's the cca that makes the difference, voltage is only one aspect of it.

Well, the new battery worked for the first few weeks. I went on vacation for 10 days (didn't disconnect the battery) and now she won't turn over. Guess it could be from sitting, but I've had it go longer sitting idle and had no problem.

Anyone any thoughts? Firestone first suggested it could be some kind of electrical pull happening somewhere. Sounds like an expensive nightmare to investigate. They said the alternator checked out fine. I heard it couldn't be the starter since I was able to get it to turn over with a jump start.

We're the lights working? Did the clock reset to 12:00 again?
If so then you have a parasitic drain. If not check the connections to the starter.

Search for parasitic drain......I saw a thread on this....look really good on troubleshooting. I gotta see if I have it bookmarked, if I find it I will post it.

thanks @csstevej, the lights are working and the clock didn't reset.

possible it's the starter then? heard it couldn't be if a jump start got it to turn over.

I think it could be the starter. You could test the battery but you may have drained it way down trying to get the car to start. Why don't you charge the battery and see then if it holds a charge and starts the car. Our cars are picky about which battery they use but I think a new battery should be fine regardless for a while especially with the moderate california temps. I wonder if a loose connection from the alternator or a corroded ground could be a factor. I am NOT a mechanic

That you could jump-start your car only means that the starter is able to perform its functions, it doesn't tell you how WELL it does so. Could be that it's drawing a lot of amps and that your current battery isn't up to the task. Further, starters will degrade in performance the longer you crank; they will heat up a bit more and thus draw more amps to overcome the added friction caused by the extra heat: this is a downward spiral, one which tends to result in the early death of a lot of starters, and why you should never crank anything for very long at a time, allow time for the starter to cool down.

Battery and connections are always the first and easiest things to check. If you don't rule these out then you can do a lot of tail-chasing.

IF battery and connections all check out OK the move on to contemplating your starter and possible parasitic drains. The later would likely be your problem if you are certain that your battery is fully charged when you shut your engine off and you leave it setting only to come back at a later time and struggle to start your car. If you find that you can repeatedly start your car (over the course of say a few days) when it hasn't sat for very long then I'd think the starter is probably OK.

Like any problem, you've first got to establish some sort of firm baseline to go by/from in order to pinpoint it.

I've had to troubleshoot parasitic drain issues before. It's actually not as bad as it sounds. Basically when the car is off, there should be very very little amp draw so even a basic multi-meter can usually perform this test. You can put a multi-meter in parallel to the battery and check what the draw is. I can't remember off the top of my head, but it should be less than 100ma I believe. If it seems high, you can pull fuses one at a time until it drops significantly and hopefully isolate the problem.

thanks guys. today i found the clock reset to 12:00 again and the lights barely working at all... guess it's a parasitic drain.

Here's one from Bentley someone posted.....gotta find the other one I saw.

http://pics.tdiclub.com/data/500/TSB_27_08_04_Matrix.pdf

It's unclear what you have and have not done. First, stop going to Firestone unless you're tire shopping. Have you been able to charge the battery and then get the car started? If so, what was the voltage at the battery as the engine is running with lights and ac off? When you found the lights barely worked and the clock reset what were the conditions? Was this after you had almost killed the battery a couple of days earlier or after you had fully charged the battery? This has to be approached in a methodical manner and it's certain Firestone won't be helpful. I hope they're not doing your oil changes and other preventive maintenance.

^^^ Agree!

OP could have destroyed the battery: starter could now also be compromised. The source of the problem could very well still be there in which case dropping in a new battery is likely going to result in the same thing happening again (and this next time it'll lead to another battery replacement AND possibly a new starter [which, if not a proper rebuild will further only confuse the actual, real problem- LOTS of money and tail-chasing]).

I got the battery charged today and came back to test for a parasitic draw. First time doing this kind of thing...

I watched a great youtube vid (and read a few things online). First I checked the batter and yes, it's a good 12V.

To test for the draw, I have the positive cable from the car connected and disconnected the negative. I put my positive voltmeter cable to the negative battery cable and the negative voltmeter to the battery's negative post.

This is supposed to track the draw, but for me, it shows a full 12amps! Sure hope I don't have that big of a draw. Seems to me I'm just measuring the batter voltage itself. Using the 50amp DC setting on my voltmeter. Not sure what's up.

Did you try starting it? If so, did you then check voltage?

Yep, it did start up fine, so the stater is apparently not the issue. It was 12v.

Now I just can't tell what I must be doing wrong to show 12v of parasitic pull.

dugawug said:

Yep, it did start up fine, so the stater is apparently not the issue. It was 12v.

Now I just can't tell what I must be doing wrong to show 12v of parasitic pull.

Click to expand...

If it was showing 12V on your meter with the engine running you have a charging(alternator)issue. The meter should be showing anywhere from 13.9 to 14.5 volts. Give or take.

Cogen Man said:

If it was showing 12V on your meter with the engine running you have a charging(alternator)issue. The meter should be showing anywhere from 13.9 to 14.5 volts. Give or take.

Click to expand...

He was trying to read amp draw, not charging voltage.

Dug, can you post a picture of the settings on your volt meter?

@whitedog - I would but I went through part of the mystery (noob error with a multimeter no doubt).

Now I have a better one that measures amps starting at 1A range... I ran tests twice today with two different results. At one point, it stuck at 0.44A (440mA), so I thought I had proof of a draw. I run a few errands and come back later and nothing, down to just .01A.

I can't pick up anything with a lower setting for some odd reason, likely noob error but regardless, it doesn't seem to have any significant pull now.

Confused, going to try having the alternator tested again.

Based only on what you sort of posted, my guess is your alternator is bad but who knows? You have replaced the battery and the starter turns the motor over. You can't ask much more from it. Now, if you could start the car, turn off the fan, ac, lights, etc and then measure the voltage. The VOLTAGE. As far as I can tell you have not done that. It should read over 13 volts. If it's reading 13.5 to even a little over 14 then the alternator is working and you'll have to continue your quest. Find someone that knows how to read volts on a multimeter and report what they find.

I have a few digital voltmeters with usb output you stick in the cigarette lighter. Go on Amazon and order one for each car you have. $6 as I recall. You can leave it in there 24/7. The first indication of a problem shouldn't be when your kid rolls to an undesired stop in a bad area after dark.

The voltage running is 14V, and when I turn on the stereo, lights, heated seats is 13.7V. According to a youtube vid, that's low, but not quite low enough to indicate an alternator issue.

I'll check again for parasitic drain, but so far haven't been able to reproduce anything significant.

The starter and battery are ruled out, and the alternator seems fine too (reminder, local parts store's device did say it was fine). Just can't seem to find any drain on the battery, so still totally confused.

Also, when checking for a parasitic drain, for the first second it shows a decent value (.4 or .5A) but then quickly drops off to .01A.

I can never get a reading on my meter's mA scale and I think the reason is I set it to the 200mA scale, switch the red cable to mA (only other choice is the 10A slot), and boom, the initial surge of 400-500mA blows the fuse.

Anyway, all I can surely see is the Amps scale quickly dropping off to 0 to 0.01. Would prefer the granularity of seeing what kind of mA that really is (50?, 150?), but I can't seem to work around blowing the fuse. My meter only has range of 10A then straight down to 200mA.

It seems you've narrowed it down. If you have no one close to help, it may be time to put it in the hands of a shop that specializes in electrical troubleshooting. Good luck.

csstevej said:

Here's one from Bentley someone posted.....gotta find the other one I saw.

http://pics.tdiclub.com/data/500/TSB_27_08_04_Matrix.pdf

Click to expand...

This is how you measure current draw. Do it this way.

runonbeer said:

This is how you measure current draw. Do it this way.

Click to expand...

Very cool. I had missed that link earlier. I can't think of any reason why that chart would not work on any vehicle.

Well, I have no access to a VAS 5051, so doing this the "old fashioned" way I suppose.

As for testing for drain, I have two problems:

1. I can't use the mA scale on my multimeter to test the draw without blowing a fuse. Why? Because when I attach the meter, the system wakes up and throws out well over 400mA initially. This blows my 200mA max range. I can only use the next step up which is the 10A scale and see the initial surge drop down after about 2-3 seconds to .01A (100mA). Problem there is that's not granular enough... is that .01A really 20mA?, 50mA?, 100mA? or 149mA? I can't switch my meter over at this point to mA scale without changing the cable, etc. and then I get the initial surge again. Anyone know a trick around this? I tried putting a second multimeter on it, the first to cause the initial surge, then attach the second once it dies down, but that didn't work.

2. Other than the above, I can't seem to reproduce anything greater than .01A draw. I swear at one point I did see .44A sustain beyond the 2-3 second wake up mode, but haven't seen it since. I read an article that says drains can be tricky to catch and the electric device causing it may wake up at any old time. Like I have 24 hours to sit and stare at my multimeter hoping to catch it get well above .01A!

Again, clearly not the battery nor the starter. Seems alternator is fine, slight chance it could still be that, but so far I seem to suffer from a drain that is proving to be tricky to catch and a situation that makes it tough to get a more accurate multimeter reading.

You didn't read the whole .pdf. The second half is the bit you need to read.

But if you insist on not doing it the right way, to stop your meter form going overrange start with the battery clamp resting on the post (so loosely connected), place one probe on each part, then seperate the post and clamp whilst holding the probes on. Simples.

Thanks DPM.

I went out, reconnected my battery, set my multimeter to DC mV and went over each and every fuse. I also jiggered the door latch so it seemed closed. In doing so, the only fuse that read anything was #14 and it barely gave .3mV. Comparing on the chart, that's about 43mA which is barely above the nominal pull (40mA).

Did I follow that procedure correctly? Seems the long and short of it is we're testing mV drop across each fuse for the drain instead of mA draw directly from the battery.

43 is pretty high. Does your car have monsoon sound system?