If I needed a Jumpstart...

[QporscheQ]

I didnt drive my car for two months over the holidays while at the same time it was super cold here and the combination of the two caused my battery to die. I tried using a trickle charger to get some juice but the charger decieded that the car was too much load with a totally dead battery and did help at all. It just kept going to "Fault" mode. Onto Plan B. So don’t be shocked if nothing happens with the trickle charger.

I opened the fuse panel to see if my car had the lead in there like people kept mentioning on this board (it’s a '02) and low and behold a little manual fell out with instructions on how to open the hood when the battery dies. I started laughing. Fortunately for me I have two cars so I hooked up the battery from my other car (as the instructions indicated me to do) and my car sprang back to life with horns and lights flashing from the alarm. I popped the trunk and hooked up my "serious" battery charger to the batter and nothing. Battery was dead dead dead and wouldn’t take a charge. I tried jumping off my other car with no luck either. My local AutoZone had a replacement in stock (the guy said they usually only have one in stock if any and only sell a couple a year). I used the new battery to pop the trunk again (I let it close by accident the first time) and swapped out the old one.

A bit of a pain, but long story short if you have a second battery, hooking up to the lead in the fuse panel is really simple.

[MNBoxster]

Originally Posted by QporscheQ

I didnt drive my car for two months over the holidays while at the same time it was super cold here and the combination of the two caused my battery to die...

Hi,

Many don't realze that a Battery can become useless if discharged. A discharged Battery can freeze in as warm as +20°F.

In addition, whether frozen, partially frozen or merely discharged, a battery always suffers some internal damage. It will never be as good again once it's been discharged, the extent of the damage (from dispositioned plates, to cystallized plates, broken leads and improper electrolyte solution, depending on numerous factors). The SAE released a paper last year stating that on average, a car (Wet Cell) battery loses it's ability to acquire and hold a charge by 15% each time it is discharged.

But, it's also important how you charge a Battery which it becomes discharged. Charging at a high amperage rate will damage the Battery, perhaps rendering it useless. This means that Jumping the Battery from a donor Car with a 120Amp Alternator is a bad thing. It's best to Jump it strictly from the other car's Battery with the donor car OFF. You want to re-charge it at the lowest Amperage available, which usually means a Trickle Charger of no more than 1.5 Amps. The issue you experienced is common. Had you left it on the Trickle Charger, it would most likely have started charging it in a hour or so, despite the warnings you received, unless of course the Battery had been damaged which is quite likely. The downside, is that a Full charge with a low-amperage charger, can take as long as 25 Hrs. People seldom realize that a Battery requires proper care and maintenance to give a long service life...

Happy Motoring!... Jim'99