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1998 Automatic B5234T3, ~240K miles
My car's been parked for a couple of weeks and gave no indication of engine problems prior to being parked. Plenty of antifreeze/coolant in the system.
I went to move it for street sweeping a few minutes ago and it wouldn't start.
The crank sound really strange, sort of a higher-pitched whining and a rough crank. Not the usual crank rhythm at all.
I went to open the hood and the cable release broke. #$%&^@^&^@%%@!!
I checked the OBDII, but there's nothing set. I seem to recall that it won;t set a code until it starts. I'm going to have to trace the broken cable when the sun comes up
It's dark and cold. Not *that* cold - mainly too dark to really check anything out.
I'm wondering if it's simply a failing starter (original as far as I know) but the weird noises don't give me much to go on.
The timing could be worse, but this is still a serious problem.
Any thoughts?
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Just to put the thread to bed, it turns out that it was indeed the battery.
I charged the battery up, found it dead in the AM, charged it again, checked for amperage draw via the negative terminal and found nil.
I charged it and left it unhooked overnight. Found it dead in the AM.
A $170 battery solved the problem.
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I availed myself of the two of $5.50 multimeters for sale at Harbor Freight and reliably confirmed that my battery does produce a solid 12 volts.
Actually, it's more like 12.87 and seems to be falling gradually.
I put the charged battery back in the car and it started a ran just fine. No weirdness. While running, I read a solid 14.8 volts from the terminals.
Shutting it down, the voltage starts to fall measurably.
I believe that this indicates a failing battery. I suspect that it's been on the verge for a while and the extended "park" just prior to the holiday break allowed it to fall past the critical point.
If predicted snowfall doesn't bury us tomorrow and beyond, I'll head out and check it again.
Unfortunately, I didn't budget for a battery this week, so it will have to remain in its present state for another week or two.
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It's a bad time of year to be checking for a parasitic voltage loss, I understand it will be a bit frosty in MO, but if the voltage drops below 12V it might not be the battery. And the only way I know how to check that is to pull one fuse at a time to check for current draw.
Are the windows supposed to 'work' with the key off? Is the glove box and trunk light still on? If you check the battery today, it should still be at 12V if everything is OK.
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This weather's nothing special compared to Minnesota, but we haven't had anything like this for a few years now and half the city is shut down as a consequence. I'm looking a snow drifts that are 18" deep or more... There's 8-12" on my Volvos. No way I'm going outside the house to check my battery voltage
Ken makes some good points. I'll try not to jump to conclusions about the root problem until I have more evidence.
What I do know is that the battery became discharged after sitting for a couple weeks. Putting the 10 amp charger on the car didn't help at all and gave me a number of really strange electrical problems and behaviors. Removing and charging the battery restored the car function completely - as though nothing was ever wrong with it.
I'll check again as soon as it's again fit for humans outside.
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re: "...Shutting it down, the voltage starts to fall measurably. I believe that this indicates a failing battery...."
No. It's normal for a battery's voltage to fall immediately and abruptly upon shutting off either the engine (viz., alternator) or an ordinary charger* on it. While the battery being charged should be at ~14 volts (higher in cold weather, lower in hot weather -- yes, it's very temperature dependent), the charge should drop quickly to about 12.6 v and then stay there, in healthy battery.
If it drops and stays at a lower (than 12.6) voltage, that could indeed indicate a problem -- but it's this steady voltage AFTER it dropped that's important, not the observation that it didn't stay up at 14 volts after charging stopped.
[ * If you have a multiphase battery charger, then it should initially charge at ~14 volts but then eventually change the charge mode and drop to and stay at about 13.3 volts indefinitely. But as above, once the charger is shut off, the voltage should drop immediately as I described above.]
Other than load testing with a load tester, the best way to check your battery is to check the battery voltage while cranking the engine. If the battery voltage drops below about 10 volts during cranking, you have a bad battery.
Also, age is the poorest criteria to judge a battery. I have seven year old batteries that are in good condition and start my cars in cold weather (e.g., it was -5 F this morning in NJ), and yet batteries just a few years old can fail. It's mostly all about how they're cared for -- e.g., making sure they're charged up if you leave the car for a while (weeks); never leaving them to drain the battery with the lights on; etc.
Good luck.
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posted by
someone claiming to be 240850
on
Wed Jan 1 17:28 CST 2014 [ RELATED]
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You don't mention how old battery is.
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The battery is about 4 years old. Was new according to the seller I bought it from in Feb 2010.
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posted by
someone claiming to be 240850
on
Thu Jan 2 21:47 CST 2014 [ RELATED]
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I bet you have your answer now!
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Today, went to start the car again for a short errand.
Hopped in, turned the key and got nothing.
Lights very dim, weird clicking instead of cranking, bright dash lights when the key is out.
I pulled the lower dash panel and got the hood released with a pair of vice-grips.
Nothing weird under the hood. Battery connectors are clean and tight. All fuses are good.
I've misplaced my multimeter, so I can't do any proper testing at the moment.
I did go ahead and put my charger/starter on the battery and tried the ignition.
Really weird clicks, nothing electrical work, and the charger seems to read that the battery is fully charged.
With the ignition on, I could not raise or lower a window. With the key off, I was able to *very* slowly raise and lower a window.
With the charger off, there's no power to operate anything.
The suddenness of all this is especially weird.
It's so dang hard to get to anything on a P80 model, but my only ideas are these...
1) Starter problem - solenoid might have failed internally and is shorting current
2) Some sort of ground failure
3) Ignition switch?
4) Something else
I need to locate my multimeter for proper testing...
Any ideas?
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Sounds like a battery with a dead cell. The interior lights only take 9 volts to look bright, the starter takes 11-12V. The starter solenoid will click when the charge gets too low to spin the charger.
Window motors also need 12V, don't know why they would work when the key is out, but traveling very slowly indicates about 9V or so.
A dead cell means that a charged battery is only at 10V max. Find that meter!!
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I'm looking for the meter, but the snow and cold-arse temps are discouraging me from going back outside.
A battery problem is roughly consistent with my issues. What do you make of the bizarre clicking and no crank at all that I had with the battery charger hooked up? Wouldn't the extra amperage have cancelled out the dead cell?
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A charger will not deliver the cold cranking amps you need to excite the starter. If the battery is good in the 1996, move it to the C70 and see what happens. Just a couple of turns with a 10mm wrench. Or, move the 850 and use jumper cables.
Cold? We call this frosty!
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I don't have a 1996, but I do have a good battery that I took out of my 940 a month ago. It's positive terminal was too close to the inner fender... fun-time corrosion there...
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You'll need a good pair of pliers to pull on the cable. Get a new one at a junk yard...
While cranking, does the engine sound like it is rotating faster than normal? Like no compression - lawn mower syndrome? A table spoon in each cylinder to coat the rings will up your compression. Use a drinking straw, dipped in an oil can and a finger over the end of the straw to hold it while guiding the straw into the spark plug hole - about 1-2 inches of oil in the straw.
Don't forget to listen for the fuel pump when the key goes to posII.
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it's sorta like the crank is too slow to start the motor, it was almost skipping part of the rhythm... but the starter is getting plenty of power.
I tried it again, and kept going and eventually it fired up... really rough, weird smell.
Gradually coming up to a normal idle. Ran it for a while. Moved it out of the way of the sweepers. Shut it down. It started back up fine. Will try again tomorrow.
Still had a weird smell from the exhaust. 3/4 tank of fuel, but maybe some bad fuel?
The 850's lock were frozen a couple days ago, maybe there's some water in the C70's fuel tank...?
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posted by
someone claiming to be hf
on
Wed Jan 1 07:13 CST 2014 [ RELATED]
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I had a similar problem with the 93. We drove over to church which is ~ 1.5 miles only. The morning was very cold and the car would not start after church.
I believe it was a combination of short drive plus very cold morning, I know drive at least 3-4 miles before turning the car off in very cold mornings.
These cars just like to be driven!!!
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