Car Battery

[Nick1911]

Well, maybe.  The battery actually tests fine.

Here's what I've got: Roommates 2009 Kia Rio, no problems, all the sudden will not start after coming out of a store.  The car had been sitting maybe 15 miutes, the lights were not on, etc.  Car would try to crank, but didn't have enough change to keep turning over then engine.  Subsequent attempts led to the tick of death where the solenoid just buzzes.

A friendly passerby jump started the car.  It still turned slowly, but did start.  It runs fine with no warning lights.

Upon getting it home, I had the battery tested at the autoparts place.  Two different auto places said the battery tested good, and just needed a bit of a charge.

I installed the battery back in the car; the car started fine.  Resting voltage is 12.85VDC, running voltage (idle) is 14.10VDC.  Looks fine to me.

The car is new enough, I didn't find any corrosion on the battery terminals or other wiring (grounds, etc)

So... any thoughts on what's wrong with this car?

[charby]

Heat is a killer of batteries also. Maybe the battery is on the edge of failure.

[AmbulanceDriver]

Nick, I had something similar happen to me on a 78 dodge truck.....   Turned out to be a loose connector on the battery.  I'd check all the wiring from the battery back to the starter to see if anything has worked it's way loose.

[Tallpine]

I didn't find any corrosion on the battery terminals

Sometimes it's not visible.

[Triphammer]

Check for corrosion inside the cables where they enter the clamps, bend the cable hard & see if the clamp comes off. Connection of ground cable to the engine.Connection of +(Pos) cable to starter. Pull & test starter.

[mtnbkr]

What Trip said.  I had corrosion inside the poz cable of mr 4runner once.  Was eating its way up the cable like cancer.  Caused the same symptoms...

Chris

[cassandra and sara's daddy]

i knew a guy who pulled his starter had it tested then reinstalled it.  worked ok then wouldn't start again.  so he got a new starter  when he went to put it in he found out that he had used the wrong bolts in reinstall so starter was not firmly mounted/grounded.  he put new starter in anyway and got the bolts right/tight and all was well.  what a moron.    oh and if anyone need a used jeep starter with nothin wrong with it let me know

[zahc]

Most starters ground through the engine block. So even if the positive cable is in good shape, if there is corrosion where the starter bolts on between the starter and the engine block, sometimes they won't turn over well. Smacking the starter with a hammer sometimes helps. I wouldn't expect this on a 2009 but with aluminum engine blocks nowadays, you never know. Steel and aluminum corroded quickly when in contact.

Also, you need to have a good ground strap from the car to the engine block for the same reason. Most cars have rubber-mounted engines. If the ground strap is gone, the engine block will be grounded through a bunch of incidental conductive paths, causing everything to seem to work fine, but the starter won't turn over right because there is no high-current ground path. I heard of a guy who kept blowing out front drive shafts on his front-wheel drive car every few thousand miles because his ground strap broke, and the engine arc'd through the drive shaft/wheel bearings when he started it.

[MechAg94]

The battery is 3 years old.  If it isn't such a great battery to begin with, he might consider replacing it with one of those 8 or 10 year batteries from Autozone or other.  

I had my previous truck for 9 years.  I replaced the battery at 3 or 4 years.  I put in the better battery and never had issues again.  

Getting stranded due to a car battery is not my idea of fun and they are not too expensive to just replace.  I guess most of my bad experiences were with batteries from Sears Hardware.

[Jim147]

A load tester will quickly tell you if the battery is weak. I figure that since you went to two places, you have better odds that one of them knew how to use the tester. If your in doubt, you can borrow mine.

A dragging starter or solenoid getting hot can be a little harder to catch if your not there driving all the time and have a meter with you and a second person to crank it while you read the meter. When it used to take less then a beer to change out a small block Chevy solenoid and even less time to change out a Ford, you could track down the problem pretty quick.

As I'm sure you know, this heat is a killer on all things great and small.

jim