DD won't start. Any clues? (maybe electrical short)
 

So I was driving yesterday in my altima and it quit out on. me as I approached a stop light.

Completely lost power. I did have to jump it that morning which I thought was odd, but I had assumed that I left the lights on or door ajar or something because I was fooling with the a/c the night before.

My first thought was the alternator stpoped charging, but I thought it was odd that I didn't see a battery light.

I couldn't figure out anything on the side of the road and got it towed. Only while I waited for him, I noticed that since my hazard button was pushed (useless, had no lights/power) I could hear a faint noise. Up under the dash instead of a normal solenoid clicking noise for the hazards, I was hear what sounded like weird electrical/solneoid noise. It was very faint.

So the two driver gets there, puts a jump box on it, and it starts right up, he drives it onto the flat bed and I tow it to my parents house which was near by.

I took his charger/jumper out to the car to drive it into the garage to maybe start to pull the alternator, when I was faced with the odded stuff.

When the charger was on the battery I regained all my lights/beeps that you'd expect when you open the door and put the key into the ignition switch. However, when I cranked the car, it start making awful solenoid cylcing noises, like 100 solenoids clicking very rapidly at once, and my tach gauge goes to 2500RPM. The starter doesn't move, it's jus tlike I'm flowing voltage to places it should when I turn the key.

Anyways, check out this video:

I first crank. Then I push the hazards lights where you can hear more solenoid music. Then I noticed that when I turn my headlights on I completely lose power to the car again. Then I toggle the turn signals and you can hear them rapidly cycling.



When I take the charger off the battery, I lose power, but the battery shows 12.6v and charger displays it's fully charged.

What are you're thoughts? This car was only supossed to last me a few more months...

Sounds very similar to some weird crap my miata did a few years ago. Turned out to be the battery. If you've got a battery you can swap in it might be worth trying.

Hotwire the starter solenoid. If the starter cranks then its the solenoid.

Id also check the cable running down to the the starter, maybe its corroded?

I gotta agree with Pdexta though. You may have the voltage but you may not have the current and that may be why its failing too.

we might have a spare one floating around to try. It's an advance auto special dated 9/10. probably have it checked out today at least.

If all the grounds are in place, then the battery, it is dead and stuff.

I told you already, replace the battery.

thanks bros. this had me a little stumped, as the battery tests fully charged and it's not behvaing like I've ever seens (this is probably the 4th battery on this car)

i just need this car to stay running through winter; wasn't happy at the idea of replacing the wiring harness or something crazy like that. Or driving the miata in the middle of Aug without a/c

Sometimes car batteries develop a high internal resistance; when not under load and tested with a DMM, they show a nice, healthy voltage. When however, you request current, the internal resistance steps up and very little current flows. The result is exactly what you've shown in your video.

I've had the 100 solenoid sound when trying to crank before, and it was because of a dead battery. I imagine it's caused by the starter solenoid cycling a whole bunch as it gets some juice from the battery but not enough, some jazz like that.

Anyway, I vote for battery.

battery is enroute to Advanced Auto.

they tested the battery and they seem to think it's in perfect operating order.

u people need to help your admin.

bro don't you know everything?

no, i havent found the answer on google yet to copy and paste here to pretend to be all knowing.

Considering the circumstances did you try a battery from a known good car?

I've got a battery that charges and reads fine but won't start a car (1 try maybe on a small engine). It is, however, a good 12v source for appliances like air compressors though.

Are you sure the alternator is ok ie start the car on a charger/ starter (if you have one) then remove. I'm not sure from your story if the tow guys charge pack was left on the car while driven onto the flat bed or not. The car should stay running with a dead battery if the alternator is good.

lol bro

DMM on battery while cranking.

If it drops below 9.6, the computer gets confused, and doesn't work properly.
The problem will be your battery.

If it doesn't drop, you have another problem.

Report back.

Not if the battery has an internal short.

I have had this on two different vehicles. One of them was the battery and the other was the terminal on both the battery and at the starter needed to be cleaned.

In my Jeep the battery just quite on me and at low speeds drew so much from the system that it would stall if I didn't keep it above 1500rpm. As long as it had a load it was fine. I ended up completely disconnecting the battery and getting a jump to drive up to get another. That battery was only 8 months old. They tried to say my battery was fine, so I brought it back out there and it did that crap, but with a new battery it would.

yeah, he put a jump box on it, started right up, drove onto bed, turned it off.

got to my parents house maybe 20 minutes later. I hook my charger/jumper on it, set it to start (50A), and try it and I get all that crazy ---- you see in the video.

I let it "charge" for about 2 hours and tried again to no avail.

Dead battery is dead. I've had it happen on few occasions. Battery wouldnt charge at all... even after an hr of being hooked up it just wouldnt take. Voltage shows good but as soon as u crank it, it goes to 0.

Battery. Think about it. It starts with a jump box, when the jump box is hooked up the only thing that changes is the power source.

Put a good power source (battery) on and it will start, then drive it to your local NTB, Pepboys, Sears, or Firestone and have the do an actual alternator test (not just put a Multimeter on it while its running) to see how its doing loaded and unloaded cruise rpm and idle.

A dead battery shouldnt kill a running car unless there is another problem or you have a variable charging alternator type thingy which I dont think the older altimas have.

Battery has a bad cell(s).

Weird clicking noises are caused by low voltage playing havoc on relays.

Would also check main power and ground connections for any corrosion.

I think it's the starter solenoid, guys.

i was able to get the car started, with my battery removed, by jumping my cables to another running car.

problem was, it barely ran and when i finally got it to idle it just wasn't running well and was throwing EGR and IACV codes, a few other random ones.

Anyways, after I shut it down, I could not get it to start ever again. I couldn't get power ot the car anymore, even with it jumped to a battery on a running car.

the voltage on the jumper cables instantly dropped to 1.5v when I put them on my car.

So, I first tried to disconnect the alternator 12v wire, nothing, crawled up under the car and pulled the 12v off the starter and I instantly had +12v on the terminals off when I tested it again.

Looks like I can get a replacement for $89.99 with a $30 core, and using a $30.00 off coupon, that brings it to $59.99 once I return the core back. Not bad. JUST A BIG ASS PITA IN ORDER TO REPLACE THE DAMN THING!!!! It's directly behind the motor dead center above a freaking K member support thing. ------- FWD is fail. I'll replace it over the weekend unless im a complete moron and you guys dont think it could be the solenoid.

What gauge were these booster cables that you were able to start your car from another car? Also, the reason you probably had all the haywire lights was because you ran your car with barely a battery.

Did you try starting the car with a good known battery in the car to rule out the battery?

Did you try hot wiring the starter solenoid to rule out the starter?

IMHO starter solenoid has nothing to do with the weird issues you are describing.

Batteries like to cause some weird ---- when they die. I see this a lot at work, VSC lights turn on, ABS lights turn on, CEL's turn on, electric power steering completely stops functioning at inconvenient times (pucker factor of 10 out of ------- 10 right there).

I don't even bother diagnosing. 99.9% of the time the battery needs replacing. Get your battery tested somewhere else. I'm not buying that your battery passed a load test.

Call Fae, he'll figure it out.

This is what happens when the voltage drops below 9.6.

battery. had exactly the same think when a battery smoked crack and went haywire.
replace battery. profit

(drunk so don't mind if misspelled words)

I was using the largest gauge boosters known to man. They are around -10gauge.

I first started the car using another car's battery. I simply hooked jumper cables up to this car's battery, then my postive and negative cables. My battery was still pulled from the car. I saw (and sitll see) no reason to pull the battery out of another car...the physical location of it doesn't matter.

It took a few attempts, the starter struggled a little but i was finally able to get it to fire. It wouldn't idle on its own without throttle inputs but after a few minutes it would. It was idling really low and didn't recover well to throttle blips.

Right then and there I was about to take the battery back to advance, with my reciept from under 2 years ago, and have them replace it.

I shut off the car in the meantime, and was dickin' around and talking to my dad about what I just tried. I got back in the car to show him how it starts on another battery (he was the one who took my battery to advance for me yesterday) and I had no power to the car again. Nothing was touched, I just turned off the ignition.

(I took a video of that car running in the above configuration, but I cannot get my phone to connect to my cpu to upload from here.)

Anyways, so while I had the battery sitting there, I tested it with teh DMM again and it showed 12.6v (perfect--yeah yeah yeah). So I figured what the hell, let me put the jumpers on this battery again and it should go haywire like before.

nothing. no power whatsoever.

So then I tested the voltage on my battery cables and i was seeing like 0.5v.

I took the jumpers back off the my original battery, hooked it back up to the other car's and this time I was measuring 1.5v on my cables. If I disconnected the postive jumper from the positive cable, I would measure +12v on the jumper. The instant I connected it to my battery cable, I would watch the DMM drop back down to 1.5v.

So something was causing all the voltage/current to drop out.

I pulled the 12v cable off the alternator and saw the same drop in voltage.

I got under the car and pulled the 12v cable off the starter and I had +12v back on my battery cable again and the car seemed perfectly normal in cabin again. I had all my power, all the lights worked.

What I didn't try was my battery again like this, which I wish I had.

I did NOT hotwire the starter solenoid, first off I didn't know what to do. Second I had no more light, and third I was tired and hot from working out on the street on a warm summer day with +80% humidity on the side of the raod and pretty much figured it has to be a failed solenoid eating all the current.

If that was the case, then there would be a HUGE shortcircuit and something would be on fire.

Put the other car's battery in your own car. Just be a man and DO IT. I do not trust your $5 starter cables or you $0.99 DMM.

This is a brand new craftsman DMM and really really really legit 2 or 4-gauge starter cables.


I could measure +12v on the battery it was hooked up to, +12v on the end of the jumper cable, but as soon as I clamped it on my terminal, the voltage (measured in the same spot on the jumper cable) would drop to 1.5v. I could go back to the battery it was clamped to and it still showed +12v there.

I was begining to think I somehow had a bad cable and went to go grab a second set when I noticed the voltage would come back when I tested it without it connected to my car.

A voltage drop can't happen before a load, therefore the load is the wire.

Then how come all seemed well when I took the positive wire off the starter?

If current doesn't flow, there can't be any voltage drop. Vd = R(load)*I.

Well my wife suggested I drive it into a lake and collect insurance money. problem is, I cant drive it.

irony.


Is it not possible the starter solenoid could not be pulling a crap ton of current?

The solenoid? I doubt it. If it was, you would never be able to start the car, even with a fresh battery.

Yeah, get that. But it could still be going in and out right?

like I started the car after a few attempts, and it was really struggling to go.

then i shut off the car, and when i go back to it, it's completely dead again with the battery still hooked up and the other car's engine turning.


like i said, the car started back right up when the tow driver put his jump box on it, but then when I got home and wanted to drive it into my dad's garage, it was going insane and the starter wasnt even attempting to move.


sidenote: driving the miata with no a/c is not fun.

Which confirms that the car is ok, there is no short or current sink. Your jumper cables are shitty and this confuses you more. Put a fresh battery on the car, not with jumper cables, install it properly.

Given its small size, and the fact that the solenoid's operating power comes through the key switch on every car I'm familiar with, no. At least, not enough to pull a healthy car battery down to 1.5v for more than about 50 milliseconds, after which they'd both be vaporized.

Rev is right. Something about your test setup is creating an erroneous condition. Put the fresh battery directly into the car, and eliminate some variables.

how about it do the same with 3 pairs of jumper cables.

and my dad was surprised, shocked, and proud of the size of my jumper cables, thank you very much.

I only see that voltage when tested on the altima end of the jumper cables. tested back at the battery it was still at 12v. does that make sense?

Your denial to just put a battery in the car is disturbing.

Scott would rather spend $5 20 times to fix his car than buy a 99 dollar battery.

But what makes even less sense is that he implied his current battery is under warranty.

Scott,

Did you grow up with running water?

It always infuriates me when people ask for my "expert's advice" then proceed to ignore it and do their own anyway.

I'm not doing anything. Just trying to explain what I saw.

And I'm not refusing, I just don't have a spare battery to toss in, and only my dad's bimmers and the miata to pull one off, if worse comes to worse I'll have to try to miata battery and lose all my presets to the classical stations.

This is why I just tried it with jumper cables.

the car is 30 minutes from me, so it's hard to do this. I'll get my dad to try to get the battery swapped again today and make sure they at least try to load test it.


Ps, I have man crush on Reverant.

NO
NO MORE TESTING

just get it swapped. Play dumb. Whatever it takes.

Synopsis:


Brainy: Wutz wrong wit mah car guyth?

Rev: Battery
y8s: Battery
18psi: Battery
me: Battery
curly: Battery
Joe: Battery
pusha: Battery
your mother: Battery
everybody's brother: Battery

Brain: No, can't be the battery holmes u c, cuz it'sa chargin' an haz voltz.

Hey guys, I keep snapping studs on my turbo manifold. I saw TSE sells a hella expensive kit, but I am pretty sure I should be okay with some lock washers, right?

Take it back to advance and make them warranty it. I work in oreilly's and see this ---- all the time.

The battery will test good on a handheld analog or digital battery tester. Then if I test it in the charger/tester it will say "bad-cell replace"

When I was a noob at oreilly I actually had a guy threaten to kill me because I wouldnt warranty his battery that had this identical problem.

I put my miata battery in the car and here's what happened:

Cabin lights came on.
Dash lights came on.
Door chime was chiming.
headlights worked.
turn signals worked.
Crank the ignition and...






































































nothing happened, I lost all power to everything.
Cabin lights stopped working.
Dash lights stopped working.
Door chime stopped working.
headlights stopped working.
turn signals stopped working.


I pull the postive lead off the battery, put it back on and low and behold the power comes back on, try it again, and lose everything again. Battery voltage stays at 12.5v.

toss the battery back in my miata and it starts right up. I was going to try the altima battery in my miata but it's too large to reach and I was too lazy to get jump cables because as we determined by this thread, the physical location of the battery matter significantly.

I have a video, but I'll have to go home to upload it. I took my battery and will take it to get tested at the place I bought it and I'll pick up the starter.

Clean up the connections between the battery clamps and wiring.

Clean the contact on the starter and at the battery terminal for the main power lead. I went crazy trying to figure this out on my bus and the contacts on the starter just weren't making a good connection. Everything would turn on and work great until I tried to start it and then everything shut off.

starter contacts look new. honestly it's the shinyest bolt/nut I've ever seen. the rubber boot held strong throughout the years...my cv joints on the other hand...

battery cables/contacts are perfect, there's no corrosion.

So upon the first attempt to crank after connecting the battery everything goes completely dark and stays dark. I find it bizarre that you have to disconnect and reconnect the battery to get the power to return.

I know there is a brief disconnect of accessory power when cranking but why does it not come back after you release the key?

That's really bizarre.

Master relay maybe?

Do you have any modifications to the car like an aftermarket radio or alarm with or without remote start?

Have you checked over the fuse boxes yet?

If it makes you feel better, Braineack, we had two Nissans (a 2003 Altima and a 2005 Pathfinder) mysteriously and randomly die. The truck actually just completely shut off and lost all power (including power steering) while my wife was driving it on the highway.

Waited a few seconds/minutes and they started back up and drove fine; could not duplicate on demand. Decided cars were infected by the devil and sold to a clergyman willing to take on the task of exercising Satan.

I'm starting to wonder about the ignition switch.

What I said when Scott called me while I was driving back to work and stuffing my face. (and texting)