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.