battery problem - need help finding the problem

[wontonjohnny]

this summer my old battery would not start my car if i didnt drive my car for 2 days or more.. i thought it was the battery so i got a new one from sears a DIE HARD GOLD 660CCA..

it fixed the problem. i could now start it after 2 days of not drivivng my car, more than 2days, ive never tryied that,

but i suspect im bleading power somewhere or sumthing like that because with this new battery i have problems starting in really cold weather. today its like -30 and the battery didnt even have enough power to spin the starter and my alarm reset cause there was no power at all.


Anyone else have this problem???

[500KCamry]

Yep, It's either the battery or something is drawing current. I had a problem like that with my 85. Put an amp meter in series with the +'ve battery lead, read what it says, then start taking out fuses one by one, if a fuse comes out and the current doesn't drop, put it back in and go to the next fuse. If it's a circuit that has failed, you'll find out which one and track the problem from there. The only thing that won't show up with the fuses is the starter. If this is the problem source, the current will drop if you disconnect the +'ve lead from the starter. My 85 was the starter, but who knows what yours might be.

Batteries capacity is rated in Amp-Hours (AH), different than CCA.

There's a blurb about batteries here:

http://auto.indiamart.com/auto-consu...batteries.html

Your 400 CCA battery might be 50 AH (just tossing out numbers for example), which kind of means you can roughly draw 1 amp out of it for 50 hours, 2 amps for 25 hours, etc., after which she's dead and needs to be recharged. Your car may not start with a percentage of the battery capacity used, because the battery terminal voltage might drop below the point where the electronic systems operate, so the 50 AH capacity is not all useable. What I'm saying is that 0.5 amp draw for a day might reduce the capacity to the point where your car won't crank. Depends on the battery capacity. The CCA rating seems to be how many amps you can draw from your fully charged battery for 30 seconds while the terminal voltage remains above 7.2 volts.

[wontonjohnny]

cool.. i understand now... i was only getting like 25% of the power due to the temp... but still all the other cars in my family starts fine. I might return this battery and get a better dry cell one.

[chronoti]

my uncles car does the same thing too .... his car alarm was draining it .... and in my other friends FORD the RADIO was draning it .... dont ask how that happend

[Hajoca]

How far (or long) do you drive it each time? because you may have too many electrical loads (defogger, heat fan, lights, stereo, etc) and cannot charge the battery with enough driving.

Also check the alternator output with the car running. and try cleaning the connections.