Got a battery/alternator question. The battery in the Box is a few years old---I neglected to record WHEN I bought it (contrary to my usual practice), so I don't know exactly how old. Anyway, the car's been in storage since about December and has, for almost that entire period been on a Ctek battery maintainer. (My kid's got a battery out of his Celica in the garage that we'll switch the maintainer over to for a week or two from time to time. But it's been on the Boxster battery for at least 2-3 wks straight now.) The maintainer was indicating "Green", ie that the battery should be good to go, when I removed it to crank up the car for the first drive of spring---it's like 65 out and gorgeous
But when I went to start her all I got was the "click-click-click" one associates with a dead battery. After a few tries, I also started to get the idiot lights flashing and the window motors engaging for a brief fraction of a second whenever I'd try to turn her over. As I recall, that's the kind of symptoms I got several years ago when I needed a rebuild on the alternator. I get trunk lights, radio, etc, but when I tried the headlights I get nothin'.
Battery? If so, why would the Ctek indicate "Green"?
Alternator? A car should start with a bad alternator as long as the battery's okay, right?
Theories?