AmauryR

Hi, I'm having quite some trouble with my civic, it can't start at all and I had to leave it overnight in the next town over, which kinda gets me nervous. I'm thinking the battery finally shitted itself. For the last couple of weeks the car seems to take a while to turn over, like the battery was pretty drained, but looking at the alternator belt (wich was chewed to hell and very old - came with the engine), I changed it and it worked fine for a while. Now it kinda started up again with the slow cranking (its cold up here in ct), and tonight after leaving a friend's party the car wouldn't even start. I disarmed my alarm, fine. Opened the door, dome lights on. Put the key on, radio came on. Went to start the car, click - nothing. One click, then everything in the car died. I thought the main fuse went but it looks ok, unscrewed it and looked at it and its ok. I checked my grounds from the battery, they're ok. I even used a multi-meter I had in the car (for random reasons), and I get voltage at the battery?? and at the fuses also??? which confuses me even more, b/c the battery has voltage and all the fuses do also. PS. If I remember correctly, it had 11v or so. Shouldn't it read 12v atleast being that I had shut the car off no more than 2 hours ago?? Also, the car drove fine on the way to the party. Its just pissing me off because its a problem I haven't had before and I had to leave my car somewhere unsafe!!! Any suggestions???? Thanks (or well, thanks for listening).

PS. Make things a tad simpler:
1) went to party, car drove fine
2) left party aprox 2hrs later all power cut off when the key was in the start pos. (almost like a short)
3) troubleshot all fuses (underhood and dash) - tested ok
4) battery has voltage to it (aprox 11v??? seems low)
5) battery is fairly old and tired, possible cause??? (nothing else seem bad)
6) alternator is fine, I remember checking voltage (13-14v before, I was checking my HID wiring harness a couple days earlier to check a bad ballast that got wet durring the rain)
7) lately battery seems to lose power when it sits for a couple of hours, slow cranking. Now the car doesn't even crank at all.

Screw it, I'm going to get a new battery after typing all this. Hopefully that'll fix it I'll keep some info posted incase someone else runs into this problem.

-l8r

Jorsher

Yeah, a new battery would probably be the first thing I'd try if all that tested fine and like you said... it loses power after sitting a couple hours. Either you have something draining power, or your battery is bad.

I would borrow someone's battery and try it for a while. If you encountered the same problem I'd look for something that could be draining power. If the problem was solved.... get a battery.

cadougherty_67

To be able to turn you motor over you should have at least 12.45 volts. Also just because the battery is reading that it has 11 volts it may not be able to take a load. Meaning as soon as you turn the key over it dips down to under 1 volt. (keep the volt meter on the battery and have some turn it over) All of your other accessories should work because there is enough juice in the battery to power them. If you have an autozone nearby they can charge and test your battery free of charge. I recemonded charging the battery before you bring it in to save you some time. To get an accurate test it needs to have a full charge. If the battery isn't maintenance free check the water levels. If they are low fill it with distilled water. Don't use acid, that's used for 10volt batts. Hope this helps.

gotSOHC

this is kinda out of left field but my car was doing the same thing and it turned out the starter wire was loose and it finally fell off for some odd reason. plugged it back in and mad sure it was on tight and havnt had a problem since.

AmauryR

Thanks for the suggenstions guys, I'm going to check on my car now. Its wierd, I remember it showing 11v everywhere I checked however with the door open, key in, key turned, nothing. My friend told me about a loose wire he saw when he was helping me check out my car last night. Hopefully, I'll figure it out. I'm going to get the battery anyways. But yeah, the car has no power at all. I'm going to double check the 80amp main relay again, this time with some sunlight. I'll keep ya posted.

AmauryR

well, drove my car home safely tonight. Turns out it was a couple of things. First was my fault, I redid the engine bay wiring so its all hidden (came out nice), but the problem was I bolted the chassis end of the battery ground to a different bolt from the original one, and it still had paint on it (my idiocy in full effect), so there was no ground. I did get a new battery, b/c I had the old one tested and it ended up having a dead cell (explains the slow cranking, etc...). Now I fixed the problems and my car runs better (electrical-wise thanks to fresh battery). Lesson Learned: NEVER rush anything, even if its before a stag party :-D. Atleast now my engine bay looks 100x cleaner (I probably have one of the cleanest 1.5's around town :-P ). Thanks for all the replies and suggestions, they all came in handy.

-l8r