Had a problem about a month ago. Temp is below freezing and car won’t start. No telling how old the battery is so I pull it and take it to NAPA to test under load. It’s a little discharged but not enough to not start. I switch relays to test starter relay - no good. Towed into a shop and they swap relays with the AC clutch relay and works fine so we buy a new relay. I guess I could have mixed them up when I put them back in on my test but I didn’t think so.
Weather -12F last night. Two tries click and no start, third try reluctantly starts. Today about -4F and click click no start. The stepson says it’s been reluctant to start at his work - again cold days. Try to jump of my truck and still won’t start. Neighbor uses his big-ass truck with two batteries and it jumps.
Alright, I think, it’s the battery so I swap it out. So brand-new battery … click, click car won’t start.
WTF!! is going on here. Yes + is on positive and - is on negative. Yes I cleaned the posts and terminals (like I did last month). How can a car be jumped and yet not work with a new battery?
I’ve seen dirty connections keep a battery from doing it’s job. Clean both ends of both of the cables leading to the battery and try again. Not hard to do.
My first guess is that battery is slightly underbuilt for the weather you are in, are you sure yu have sufficient cold cranking amps available. I have seen this countless times in rela life sititaions where buying a slightly heavier duty battery solves the problem.
ok, do this- leave the door open so the map/dome light(s) are on. When it just “clicks” while you’re trying to start it, do the lights dim significantly? If so, the battery might not be keeping up. If not, then it’s likely either a bad cable connection somewhere or the starter solenoid is going.
More data
960 CCA, should be sufficient
Put my multimeter on it
12.4V sitting there
Drops to 11.7V when turning the key (click, click)
Now reads 12.2V.
I say bad cell. What say y’all?
ETA: I’ve never had a battery so discharged when I bought it that it wouldn’t start and 1.2V below expected voltage = 1 cell.
Another real simple test is move the ground connection on your tester to the engine while cranking and see if it reads different than it does at your battery. Starting to sound more like a bad ground connection. 11.7 would crank the engine if you had any current behind it.
Not a bad battery. Where do you get 1.2V below expected? A fully charged battery is 12.72V @ 70F.
You are going to lose a bit of voltage as the temp goes down. Since I have always lived in So Cal I don’t recall the spec for each 10 degrees F below 70F but 12.4 strikes me as pretty damn close to fully charged for the temps you are in. (I’m assuming the car is outside and no battery heater)
The clue to the problem here is the 11.7 volts when you go to crank. I would expect that number to be much lower. Even at 70F I would expect a number lower than 11.7V
I suspect you either have a bad battery cable(s) or a bad solenoid.
Here is how to determine which. You will need your voltmeter and an assistant.
Put one lead of the voltmeter on the battery +, put the other lead on the battery cable end at the starter. The voltmeter will read zero. Have you assistant turn the key to start and hold it there. The voltmeter will spike and settle on a reading. Write down that reading (ignore any - in front of the number. Just the number)
Now do the same with the battery negative and the engine block or starter case. Again write down those numbers. (Make sure you are on bare metal not a painted surface)
What you are doing is measuring the resistance of the battery cables dynamically. The voltmeter will display the difference in voltage available at the battery and at the other end of the cable.
In a perfect world these numbers would both be zero but we don’t live in a perfect world. You will always have some voltage drop in the cable. The specification is you should have no more than 0.2V. (Although I might let 0.3V slide)
If either cable has a voltage drop above spec replace the cable. If you have one of those shitty assed replacement battery cable ends buy a real cable and replace the entire cable.
If however both voltage drops are in spec I would replace the solenoid.
Personally I’m betting on bad cables.
Been a while but I had problems with my car starting in really cold temps.
Click, click… Hummmm
So I do all the electrical stuff you guys are doing, NADA… Hummmm
So I decide to check the oil while I am under the hood. It looked & acted like solid as a rock oil sorta. I had not changed from summer oil = 40 wt to cold cold winter oil = 10-30wt.
The poor starter could not turn the engine at all at the really col;d temps.
I fixed my battery - electrical problem by changing my oil.
Well, yeah, it was an old slant -6 1977 Aspen but … I was poor.
A shade tree test, not recommended but… take an old heavy cable or jumper cable and go from the positive post direct to the big positive post while your black jumper goes from negative to engine block near the starter. Actual starter & the battery are checked in one fell swoop.
Rick will prolly never talk to me again but unless it is a real new car, this is a cheap & easy test if you don’t have a multi-tester or the time or wherewithall to go get one.
New measurement this morning
27F, Tried once, click and nothing then tested battery - 11.85V
Continuity on negative cable is 0 ohms
Haven’t tested positive since it’s kind of awkward to get to the started.
You really can’t test a cable with an ohm meter because you have no current load. You can check for voltage drops if you measure your ground and your hot at different points. If you were to ground the volt meter on the engine and turn the key the voltage would drop much lower if you had a bad cable or ground connection. Same with the hot but you would have to check it at the starter without making contact with the cable itself.
At 11.85 v, battery is significantly low on charge. Battery not fully charged to begin with, alternator not recharging it, battery won’t hold charge, or excessive system drain. Should have rest voltage of 12.6.
Ohmmeter test is meaningless and useless for this application. As mentioned above, voltage drop test while cranking (or attempting to crank) is appropriate. But first get a fully charged battery.
Hooking up power from another vehicle tells me it takes a perfect charge to drive the current home. Either the connection to the starter is bad or the starter is bad. Just because it’s intermittent with lower temperatures doesn’t mean it isn’t partially bound up.
disconnect the battery and clean up the starter side. Jump it directly to the starter if you can do it safely or use an old ford relay to test it.
You can also take a torque wrench to the crank to see what it takes to turn it over. Engine could be tight when it’s cold because of oil viscosity. You might need 1000 CCA’s.