I've been lurking here for ages with hardly a post. Finally, I have a question that I hope someone has an answer for. Since my car sits for extended periods of time (I know, I know, drive it more.), I sometimes put a trickle charger on the battery to keep it topped off. Also, I know my alternator isn't working at peak performance. Anyway, Saturday, I had the charger hooked up and the power went off at our house for 5-10 minutes. Several hours later, I tried to start the car...I heard the fuel pump and had engine lights then turned the key to start. Click! Nothing. Nada. No clicking...no engine turnover..nothing. I turned the key off and back on...nothing...no fuel pump no engine lights nothing. I put the charger back on overnight. The next morning again hear the fuel pump see engine lights and then Click!. Then no fuel pump or engine lights on the second try.

My question is this...what is the likelihood that something besides the battery has gotten fried.


I'm hoping the battery has just been drained and recharged too many times...also it could have been drained straight to ground or something with the power outage and the charger hooked up, although I would hope the charger was designed better than that. My worst fear is that there was some sort of power spike which has destroyed something else in the electrical system.

Any ideas?

I'm thinking your battery is hosed, but i dont know why/how.

I'm a computer geek, and you just described a dead battery situation.

I'm thinking your battery is hosed, but i dont know why/how.

I'm a computer geek, and you just described a dead battery situation on a laptop or something.

Time to check your grounds and starter. If your starter jams it will drain your system so that you get what you describe. Check you battery with a volt meter, turn on your head lights, turn the key ot RUN (Not start) so the fuel pumo is on. Your volts should not drop very low. If they bottom out then the battery may be critical. But, since it happens when you turn to start, I would start with that circuit.

Thanks for the input. I'll check with the voltmeter like you suggest Dr. Evil. I haven't had any symptoms from the starter, but your right...A DC motor that can not move will suck some juice really fast.

First thing, put a known good battery in there and then start troubleshooting. If you have alternator problems, you should probably look at replacing the voltage regulator.

Yep, I don't have an extra battery laying around. All of my other vehicles have way too many electronic gadgets to reset if I borrow one from them, and I hate to buy a new one only to find out my old one is OK. Does anyone know if AutoZone can test your battery?

Anyone who sells automotive batteries should be able to test automotive batteries.

While you are at Autozone pick up a little device that plugs into your cigarette lighter and connects a 9v battery. You NEED this if you are changing a battery on a newer car.

If you are getting nothing, not even lights then put a multimeter across the + and - terminals you should be seeing over 12 V, 12.6 IIRC. If not then the battery is not fully charged.


When cranking or with the headlights on the voltage should not drop below 10 or 11 volts.

See more on batteries here
Battery Stuff

Oooh. What a great idea...I suppose this device keeps enough voltage to not reset all of the electronic systems. I once had to drive from Knoxville to Nashville by myself with no radio because my then girlfriend, now wife, didn't know where the code was to reset the anti-theft feature on her Volvo...which I had to jump start.

Thanks for the batterystuff link

sounds like the battery to me. Can you just jump it from one of those other cars? That way you leave the battery in the other car.

If it starts, it's the battery. Shut it off FIRST and THEN disconnect the jumpers to the other car. Don't try disconnecting the jumpers to run it or charge your battery. If you've got some dead cells, unhooking the jumper cables could conceivably fry a diode in your alternator.

Also, never ever run your 914 on the alternator alone, without a battery, like you used to be able to do with American cars. The charging circuit relies on a battery being in the system as a reference voltage, and you'll burn some things up!

Jim

get a terminal cleaner brush and scrub the terminals and the battery clamps- if those get dirty you'll have good power till you try to use some amps then it completly shuts down. more people replace batteries for this reason than any other- and guess what when you put the new battery in (with clean terminals) it works! scrubbers are usually 2 bucks.

"Alternator isn't working at peak performance" is the real culprit.
Even with a bad diode, the alt will output about 11.5 to 12 volts, so if you nevr drive extended periods with high current draw, it will usually leave just enough charge to restart. I am pretty sure your battery is history, but if you don't check and replace that alternator if it is needed, a new battery won't last as long as it should either.

Click to view attachment
sounds to me like your alternator could be the root of your problem causing your battery to never get fully charged adding to the problem. your battery can only be fully discharged/charged several times if its old. i would check to see that your battery reads (12.5v or more), then load the battery with lights etc... and see what it reads (volts) for 10 to 15 seconds. if it holds 10.5 or more v, check for voltage drop on your ground connections. to do this put volt gauge on positve terminal and neg. term. note voltage (example 12.8 v), then remove neg lead and put it on theother end of neg. cable connection (frame or engine) to see the resistance drop (say 12.3v). thats .5 volt loss which is acceptable, anymore is excesive and you need to check cable for resistance/corrosion and then make sure connection is good. some engines have multiple ground or positive cables to their final destination of your motor/starter so check each for voltage loss, then overall making sure you have at least 10.5 volts to starter when cranking.

long story short i've seen bad connections just plain open curcuit when put under load.

there also is a starter relay setup out there designed exactly for this common vw problem of voltage loss to the starter that gives voltage straight to starter instead of lossing voltage thru all the wires, ignition switch and connections involved. so you really need to know battery condition and the voltage loss at starter while cranking before replacing good parts.

Thanks for all of the suggestions, guys. I know the condition of the alternator is not good and it is on my short list...however, right now, I just need to get it running again. Sometime in the next couple of days, I hope to get some time to check out the battery in more depth, if that checks out...I'll move on to the other possibilites.

Thanks again.

Yesterday afternoon, I finally had time to pull the battery and take it down to my friendly neighborhood AutoZone to have it tested. To my dismay, it tested out fine. While pondering the miriad of complicated repairs that I may be looking at, I put the battery back into the car. Later in the evening, on a pure lark, I went out and tried to start it again, and...Viola! It started right up. There's a puzzler for you. The only thing I did to the car was remove, test and reinstall the battery...and push the car by hand out of the way so my wife could get her mini-van back into the garage. It sounds too simple, but maybe just pulling the cables and putting them back on improved a poor connection...although that sounds like wishful thinking to me.

I still find it odd that all of this started with a battery charger connected and a power outage. Just curious, has anyone ever had a relay 'stick'?

Anyway, thanks for the suggestions.

Sounds like you "cleaned" the terminals when you removed, then returned the battery.

You may also want to pick up some dielectric grease at your local flaps and coat the terminal/posts to keep the corrosion/acid buildup at bay.

Most electrical problems are at the connections.

Glad it started, I'd follow that with a lengthy drive.

Cheers,

Fin

I posted about a similar problem I was having, back in July. I got a lot of good feedback on that one, maybe that info would be useful to you as well.

Problem starting

Lava