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can't start car, electronics go crazy when i try to...

Old Feb 11, 2007
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Originally Posted by christmaspie
You're not referring to a modern, sealed lead-acid battery, are you??
Actually yes... I've had it happen to me before a couple of times.
It also happened twice to a friend of mine.
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Old Feb 11, 2007
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ok, got a question about batteries... my uncle drives a mercedes and when he's battery died, he called one of his friends who owns a bodyshop. his friend told him to just pour some water into the battery and it would work. my uncle did that and the battery is good. wtf??? can we do that to our batteries??
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Old Feb 12, 2007
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nope, different kind of battery. ours are sealed.
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Old Feb 12, 2007
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Originally Posted by JuliosDelsol93
Actually yes... I've had it happen to me before a couple of times.
It also happened twice to a friend of mine.
The following is from 'How to Diagnose and Repair Automotive Electrical Systems' by Tracy Martin. I realize it's not the best scan but we're limited to 100Kb. If anyone wants a .pdf I have one, it's more clear but about 500Kb.
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Old Feb 12, 2007
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Well now that I think about it, the batteries that my friend had were from older model cars, but I don't believe it only happens to batteries manufactured 35+ years ago because the two vehicles my friend had were an '87 ford truck and an '85 chevrolet truck. He had laid both of the batteries out on the driveway while he was overhauling the engines and both batteries were discharged. (This happened two seperate times with the ford first)( A year later he bought the '85 chevrolet and did the same thing.) These batteries were both manufactured, at most, 25 years ago. Plus I did have it happen to me to two batteries that were from the nineties. All the other batteries that I had it happened to, were in fact older ones so you did prove me wrong there.

fullgrown: ok, got a question about batteries... my uncle drives a mercedes and when he's battery died, he called one of his friends who owns a bodyshop. his friend told him to just pour some water into the battery and it would work. my uncle did that and the battery is good. wtf??? can we do that to our batteries??
First of all you can only do that to certain batteries (most commonly the older ones) but the thing is you HAVE TO MAKE SURE you use DISTILLED water. It may work using regular water but eventually the battery will go bad or it could damage it the first try. You have no idea how many people I get coming up to the parts house with older cars asking, "Why did my battery go dead, I kept adding water???..." my first question is always "Did you use distilled water?"..... That's why your battery went bad.
But you don't have to worry about adding water in the newer batteries like AMonkee said they are sealed and maintenance free.
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Old Feb 14, 2007
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so i went to autozone and asked nicely for a refund for the battery. they said they don't give refunds so i asked for a battery that works, they said they would recharge the one i brought back. so i explained that they already charged the other battery and it didn't help. they said they'ld try it anyways, so i said no and it went downhill from there. pretty much they started testing all their batteries to get me a good one asap and it turned out their entire batch was bad... so they found me one at another autozone like 3 miles away and the car is running great now.
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Old Sep 23, 2008
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Re: can't start car, electronics go crazy when i try to...

Wow, I'm having this same problem... I can jump start the car fine and have it run indefinitely, but the second i turn it off and try to restart it i get no cranking, and all the gauges go crazy w/ clicking noises. I put in a new battery from pep boys and i have the exact same issue.
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Old Sep 23, 2008
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Re: can't start car, electronics go crazy when i try to...

You may want to make sure you hooked the battery up right. Sometimes the terminals are opposite, I bought a battery from wal-mart and to my surprise it was reverse of the battery I had before. Just a suggestion.
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Old Sep 23, 2008
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Re: can't start car, electronics go crazy when i try to...

Originally Posted by joe6680
You may want to make sure you hooked the battery up right. Sometimes the terminals are opposite, I bought a battery from wal-mart and to my surprise it was reverse of the battery I had before. Just a suggestion.
That can seriously kill the electrical system and blow maybe all the fuses and possibly some components.
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Old Sep 24, 2008
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Re: can't start car, electronics go crazy when i try to...

Check your starting relay, and your wire going down to our starter. if theres high resistance in the battery cables, it will do this same thing
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Old Sep 24, 2008
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Re: can't start car, electronics go crazy when i try to...

ok, I figured it out. It is a grounding issue. when I put a wire from the negative terminal to the jumpstart ground cable (the wire running from the engine block to the center of the front frame) the car starts fine. If you ever experience a problem like this, check the grounding terminal that runs from the negative terminal to the transmission housing-- it could be corroded.
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