Car Won’t Start? Car Battery Dead?

Car Won’t Start? Car Battery Could be Dead?

We have all had that sort of sinking feeling in the throat when you have an important appointment, you are going for a job interview, you get to the car door press your button key to open the door and the door will not unlock. We have all been their; you know deep down that the car is not going to start, just when you were going to an important meeting, it is cold dark and you feel terrible.

The car door opens using the key; thank God we don’t have a car that does not have a key, just an electric fob. The guy turns his key only to confirm his worse fears; the car battery is dead as a Dodo.

He now recalls that the battery did play up a little bit a couple of weeks ago, on another cold and frosty day, but the next day the battery started the car up ok, and nothing else since.

That was a warning that he should have noted, if the car battery does not perform as well as normal, then you must get it tested, especially in winter time when the car will use the full quota of electrics, such as lights and heaters. These electrics will drain and kill off a cars battery if the car is only doing short journeys in the winter, say on the school run or only down to the shops

Back to the guy with the job interview appointment; he was wondering if he could have left the lights on or not. According to the AA here in the UK this is one of the top things that drivers do, leave the lights on and therefor flatten their car battery. It may be a good thing to actually check your battery. Lift up your bonnet (hood) and the plastic cover that is there to protect the battery and check your battery terminals, are they lose? No, are they corroded or worn out? No? Ok then if you can unscrew the plastic caps, where you can remove and then top up the battery, then you should do so to check the level of the acid.

Sometimes you find a couple of cells that are low and need topping up, or the whole battery needs topping up, but this guy’s car is fine. Some batteries today are maintenance free sealed batteries and so you cannot check the levels. Some batteries come with a magic eye on their battery with three different colours that change when there is a change to the batteries condition. One more point worth mentioning, because I know this has happened is that lady drivers should be aware of dangling jewellery, shorting the battery terminals with possibility of causing burns, otherwise the procedure is the same for men and women.

If you think that you may have left your lights on and the car battery is not completely dead, 

Then it may well be worth leaving the car for half an hour and then see if the battery has recovered enough to start the car, this can sometimes work? These little tricks are not going to help this guy though, his battery is completely gone and he needs to get to that job interview. What can he do? Well he could try a couple of things. If his car is on the flat or a slope downhill then he and a friend or neighbour could help him to jump-start the car.

This can only be done with a manual gearbox type car. You sit in the car with the ignition on, press the clutch and put the car into THIRD gear. When your friends push the car and get it rolling, you should release the clutch and all been well the car should start. Another method would be to use some jump leads and try to start the car off another cars battery.

Park the cars with the engine side by side and connect the RED positive terminal on the flat battery and then the positive terminal on the working one. Then take the black lead and connect it to the negative terminal on the good battery and the other end to an earthing point on the car and NOT to the other negative terminal.

Testing a flat car battery

The earthing point could be part of the engine or car body, but not near the fuel system. You should wait for three or four minutes for the battery voltages to even out and then try to start the car, if you are successful and the car start keep your foot on the accelerator to increase the cars speed so that the cars alternator tries to put some charge back into the car.

If one of these methods works for you then you could risk trying to get to your interview, but one way or another you are likely to need a new battery, you could contact your local garage or perhaps next time join one of the recovery companies. But if you think that your battery sounded not quite right or your lights were a bit dimmer than you thought ,then get your battery tested, because it will let you down for sure at some inappropriate time when you least wanted it to.

 Eric Roberts

Hi I would like to introduce myself. I have worked in the Garage and tyre and I am MD for online battery company www.batteriesontheweb.co.uk. I have worked for a couple for national tyre companies in my younger days, before starting my first business. I now own a garage and MOT testing centre, here in the UK called Pellon Tyre and Auto-centre, and I am a keen blogger about anything to do with cars and their related products that will help my business. We are members of Point-S and Motor-Codes and are also a Unipart Car Care Centre and of course Tyre-safe.

..

.