So a couple of days ago I ran sone errands went downtown, stopped a places locally with no issues. Pulled into my local supermarket was inside five minutes came out car had power but wouldn't turn over nothing. I got it jumped headed home put the trickle charger on it then took it to advance auto parts. They said the battery is good 660 out of 665 cca. I got it August of 2022. Today it fired right up stopped at a couple of places and again at the store for milk. Went in for 10 minutes came out and nothing. I put my jump starter on it and it fired right up. My dad says clean the terminals well as they are a little dirty. Seems weird that out of the blue it's having issues. No battery light on the dash. Anything else to look for? The guy at advance auto did tighten up the ground terminal. At first I thought that might fix it.
Weird random no starton my Neon
- Thread starter 97prizm
- Start date
AZjeff
$50 Site Donor 2023
Go to a different store.
Do you Have an automatic transmission?
Could it be the rangefinder on the tranny? That shows the transmission is in park or neutral?
Where are the sending unit that says that the vehicle is in park?
Could it be the rangefinder on the tranny? That shows the transmission is in park or neutral?
Where are the sending unit that says that the vehicle is in park?
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Show us a video of the issue your car is having.
When it doesn’t start, what does it do? crank slow, or not at all? do the lights dim? can you measure battery voltage?
Wild guess, bad clamp, attaching the jump pack moves something and it then has good/better contact. Probably needs very little to crank, for amperage. But it could be a bad neutral switch, bad ignition switch, etc, ergo the questions. Cleaning contacts is a good start.
Wild guess, bad clamp, attaching the jump pack moves something and it then has good/better contact. Probably needs very little to crank, for amperage. But it could be a bad neutral switch, bad ignition switch, etc, ergo the questions. Cleaning contacts is a good start.
Connection at the starter
Failing relay
Corrosion within the swag (battery cable into the lead clamp)
"Everybody" overlooks both ends of the ground cable
Engine to body/frame ground straps
I replaced the starter in my 1970 E150. Early on, no start
I was timid tightening the nut on the starter. It just needed a little more.
Failing relay
Corrosion within the swag (battery cable into the lead clamp)
"Everybody" overlooks both ends of the ground cable
Engine to body/frame ground straps
I replaced the starter in my 1970 E150. Early on, no start
I was timid tightening the nut on the starter. It just needed a little more.
It doesn't even click. It acts as if the starter isn't getting any juice. I had a Similar issue back in 2022 when I took it to the mechanic. They replaced the starter, battery, and fuel pump as they said all three were bad. It was having intermittent starting issues and the battery was 10ish years old.
2005. I'm beginning to hate dodge products because of this car. There's an srt-4 in a Denver junkyard. I'm really looking at grabbing the wheels off of it as they retail for $280ish each. My geo needed nothing other than brake pads a clutch, and routine oil changes till the harmonic balancer sheared off.
i seem to remember my '05 having similar issues at one time..( sold it in 2014, so it's been a minute). thoroughly cleaning the terminals, and cable ends, adding felt washers, and tightening the clamps almost TOO much, seemed to be the solution.... if I'm remembering correctly.
No click... could be a bad switch. When you do this, does the dome light flicker, go out, stay just as bright, like normal brightness?
That prior diagnosis could well be correct--it's not unheard of to have multiple failures at the same time (just thankfully not often!) (although it does sound like they fired the parts cannon). I'd still hit it with a voltmeter, make sure it is charging, and is above 11V--it's possible that if the battery is really low, the ECU might not bother trying (I don't know the programming but who knows what lurks inside the brain).
Cheap jump packs exist at Walmart. If a quick jump gets it going... that reminds me, I should charge mine.
Not sure if you can get it to do this in the driveway, and if you can get a spare set of hands. Once it's not doing it, get out, wiggle the cables. If it decides to come to life, it's something loose. In the meantime, just a cheap HF voltmeter is going to be a real help here, when it won't start, measure battery voltage and report back. Also, check the battery connections and make sure they don't wiggle easily--no sense overtightening, might break the seal on the post and have a battery leak, but by all means, pull the cable off, clean stuff up, put back together. Make sure it has a good clamp onto the post, if it wiggles too easily, then that isn't helping.
After a heavy scrubbing of the terminals and clamps flushing with distilled water and putting it back together it fired right up. The dome light seems to be back at full brightness.
You can try using a mix of water and baking soda, if there was battery acid / green crusties there. But by the looks of it, it was just plain corrosion.
Best of luck! maybe smear some dielectric grease on there, to stave off future corrosion.
Best of luck! maybe smear some dielectric grease on there, to stave off future corrosion.
Does that work better than the purple terminal protection spray? I used that many years ago when I had my geo.
No idea. My theory is, anything smeared on there is going to make a vapor barrier (or at least slow it down drastically). The special stuff might be battery acid rated, but unless if the battery is leaking, there isn't acid present. Last time I did a battery I smeared it onto the post and clamp, and it worked fine (it squeezes out); I like to keep this grease around and will squirt into various connectors when I have them apart, so it's a one size fits all sort of application (for me).
AZjeff
$50 Site Donor 2023
Hating Dodge because a 20 YO car that wasn't the best thing on the road when it was new is having some probable old age problems? At that age it's going to be what is the next thing that goes no matter what the brand.
I'm going through a round of fixes on the 02 Xterra I gave my daughter and just expect them.
You've got a nice list of things to check out now.
It's had a few weird quirks and maybe it was just bad luck. To be fair there are a number of vehicles that have way worse reliability. I'm still trying to figure out how to get Discount Tire to realize that my Continentals are out of round and to pro rate the wear or figure out that they're out of spec. The first set lasted about 70% of their rated milage but they pro-rated them. They rode great. They replaced them with Identical Continentals but this set seems to have a bobble or unevenness at certain speeds. A little frustrating. Hopefully my cleaning and scrubbing the terminals and posts have fixed it.Hating Dodge because a 20 YO car that wasn't the best thing on the road when it was new is having some probable old age problems? At that age it's going to be what is the next thing that goes no matter what the brand.
I'm going through a round of fixes on the 02 Xterra I gave my daughter and just expect them.
You've got a nice list of things to check out now.
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