It’s off the to the shop in a few hours, so this is pretty much a “what kind of cost am i in for?” question.
1998 Ford Escort. It’s working fine, drive from work to a convenience store. Car suddenly does not start. I get a jump start, and drive home (only a few blocks). I figure that if the battery is dead, I need to let it run for a while, so I leave it idling in the parking space for an hour. I return, and the engine died while it was idling, so I have no idea how long it was running for.
Screw it, the battery is 7 years old, I’ll drop a new one in and be done with this.
I start the car twice, everything seems cool. 12 hours later, I return, and try to start the car again. dead battery… clicking noises, engine doesn’t even attempt to turn over, etc.
I’m an automotive idiot, but I’m sure a few of you are not. Any advice is appreciated.
I’m not an expert by any means, but my initial thought is it’s the alternator. If a brand new battery is going dead, that seems the likely culprit to me. (OK, I’m really just posting to wait for the experts to come in and see if my guess is correct…)
My first thought is the alternator as well, but shouldn’t a new (supposedly) fully-charged battery be able to start more than twice, regardless of the alternator? After I put the new battery in, I didn’t drive around. I started it once, immediately turned it off, then started it a second time, and immediately turned it off.
Batteries are typically very nearly fully charged. I’ve never seen a new one that didn’t have enough charge to start the car. They’re generally stocked for up to 3 months, then if unsold rotated off the shelf and back to the plant for refurbishing.
A failed alternator is a definite possibility, but it may also have excessive drain on the battery, or a poor electrical connection somewhere. It’s possible that more than one of these conditions is present. Given the range of possibilities, it’s pretty much a guess what the fix will cost. Could be 50, could be 500.
Nothing to do with what’s wrong with the car now, but just as an aside: apparently leaving a petrol engine idling for such a long time is quite bad for it. I’m not a mechanic, but I have asked a mechanic about this, and he said don’t leave it idling for more than 5 or so minutes or it’ll wear the bore. (Can any mechanics confirm?) Which isn’t to say that doing so just this once has hurt the car, but I felt compelled to write this anyway.
The Car Talk guys say nope, as long as the car is fuel-injected. Apparently, in the old days, too much fuel would enter the engine while idling, diluting the oil. But nowadays, not a problem.
A battery under normal conditions is used only for starting the car. The generator/alternator keeps the car and all electrical devices working while the car is running. Also keeps the battery charged. If the generator/alternator is not functioning, then the car is running only on battery and if lights, radio are used, then the battery may be nearly dead on arrival if you had to drive a great distance. The battery does not charge at all when generator/alternator is not functioning.
Well, the guys at the shop are going to do a couple of things…
First, they’re going to charge your battery and then test it. There will be a charge for this
Second, they’re going to leave your car off and find out what sort of draw iss pulling on the battery. Normally, it’s minimal, like storing your radio presets and keeping the closk running, etc. Sometimes, a part (like the cig lighter or something) shorts and keeps a constant draw on the battery.
My (non-professional) approach, if I determined there was a draw on the battery, would be to start pulling fuses and see which one stopped the draw. not knowing where to go from there, I’d probably ask for advice on a message board.
A professional would then be abe to start isolating systems to try to figure out what caused the problem. Investigating electrical problems can be teeribly painful for both a shop and a customer. If they’re easy to find, you get to charge the client a pittance (or not) and send them on their way. If they’re not easy to find, you’re left with a customer who wonders why he’s paying 1100 buccks to replace a 25 dollar part (1100 being the charge for 10 hours of labor to try to find the damn problem, plus 25 bucks for the part).
So, the bottom line is that with these symptoms, it’s tough to try to give you an estimate. It coudl be something as simple as the battery wasn’t ever rotated out of stock at the store, and you got a bad one. It does happen (rarely), and would be relatively inexpensive if this was the case. (~100)
I had a car once that had a similar problem. The alternator was fine, but after sitting overnight the battery was dead. I took it in a couple of times, but they could never find the problem. I ended up disconnecting the negative lead from the battery every night, which was a pain but better than buying a new car. I eventually took it in for something else and someone found a short that had to do with the air conditioning.
My first thought would be that you need a new alternator, except for the second time you tried to start the car with the new battery.
My question to you would be: After you replaced the battery and between the two starts, did you do any driving or leave the car idling for any length of time?
If yes: I’m sticking with the alternator theory. Should be easy to replace. ~$100 for the part and ~$50-100 for the labor.
If no: Then you may have a short. How much the repair would be would depend on how quickly you mechanic can find the thing.
