Cruiser not starting after being in repair shop

[Jaynne Plumridge]

I had my car at the smash repair shop, picked it up and it ran fine for a couple days and now it won't start at all. Have tried checking connections and found 2 terminals loose, tried tightening them but no difference. Checked batteries and one has a green dot in the inspection window, other one says recharge battery. Have checked all connections but still nothing. Have got the battery that says recharge on a battery charger but I need my car back running asap and don't have the money for a new battery.

It will crank slowly and then just die almost like there isn't enough charge in the batteries. Can't get a reading on a multimetre for either battery either..... not sure what the problem is.

Any advice would be appreciated.....

 

[StarCruiser]

I had my car at the smash repair shop, picked it up and it ran fine for a couple days and now it won't start at all. Have tried checking connections and found 2 terminals loose, tried tightening them but no difference. Checked batteries and one has a green dot in the inspection window, other one says recharge battery. Have checked all connections but still nothing. Have got the battery that says recharge on a battery charger but I need my car back running asap and don't have the money for a new battery.

It will crank slowly and then just die almost like there isn't enough charge in the batteries. Can't get a reading on a multimetre for either battery either..... not sure what the problem is.

Any advice would be appreciated.....

Hi Jaynne and Welcome.
Batteries can go bad, sometime quickly too. Can you borrow a battery from something? It doesn’t have to be the exact one just for a test. I suspect your battery has probably got a fault but a simple way to check is to swap in a known good battery, either by removing it from wherever it is and refitting it in your truck or by using VERY HEAVY DUTY jump leads and disconnecting one or both terminals with the battery still in its original position (if in another vehicle).

The other option if you can is to take the battery to a good battery supply shop, a motor factors or the like and have them test the battery for you. They have clever testers these days and doing this after giving it a charge is good.

Let us know how you get on and good luck with it.

Rich

 

[Chris]

And you might need a better battery charger. We don't know what model you have but very often they are only maintenance chargers - say something like 4 amps. If your battery is really flat you need something around 6 to 10 amps to really pick it up. If you can get the car jumps as Rich says then the alternator will do that for you in style.

 

[StarCruiser]

Just monitor it if you do get it going, often when a battery in a pair goes bad it can take the other one with it. If you can get enough charge in it to get it started then take it to be tested that would probably get you a solution. Another thing to do when it’s running is to test the charging voltage across one battery using a reasonable (not a Poundland special )multimeter set to bolts. It should be close to 14.4v. If it’s much more than a few tenths below that then we may need to suspect alternator charging problems.