Crazy starting habits

[talonxgirl]

Ever since it started freezing steadily overnight, my Talon's developed this habit of only starting every other day. For the past week I've gone out about 3 times a day to try and start it and the pattern remains. One day it'll start up first try no problems. Next day I'll go out, spend a good half hour trying to get it to start, and all I get is a click-click-click when I release the key.

The ignition coils were just replaced two weeks ago and I tightened down every connection to the battery. There's no engine light on and it runs perfectly normal the days it starts. Is it my imagination or is every dsm possessed until you get it built? Lol

But seriously I need some help. I'm thinking it may be the ignition switch, but that seems too simple, given that every other time something's gone wrong, it's always been something completely stupid that you wouldn't originally think of.

 

[kleenf4i]

I dont know if you trust this shop or what your relationship is with them. But I worked in shops for years and typically thats just a way to make them more money. Also, a concern is, a WEEK later to run a diag? Do they know you keep stalling ?thats kinda crazy. no offense if you have been going to them for years.

 

[talonxgirl]

It's the closest shop unless I want to be stranded over an hour away. Got to love the boondocks. Lol.

But I watched them check the battery and watched the screen myself so they couldn't tell me something that I didn't see on there. I figure it might be better to spend the 25 bucks versus replacing everything until the problem stops.

I'll know if they're lying if they try and tell me it's something other than battery, alternator, starter, or ignition switch.

But the battery's going to be replaced first to see if it helps anything. If not, I'll be right there making sure every thing they touch is seen by me so I'll know what's going on.

They're closed for four days cause of the holiday. Tuesay morning's the soonest, if it starts that day.

 

[kleenf4i]

ah, gotcha. well that does explain why it will be a week. I agree with not just dumping money into something without knowing the real issue.

 

[DSM1G90]

If you have another battery handy, do the battery swapout and go from there. Or, just to make it easy, just buy another battery.

Let's start there.

 

[talonxgirl]

If only it was that easy. Lol. Every time something goes wrong, it always picks the worst time financially. Finding an affordable good battery is going to be tough. How much does a typical good battery from a junkyard run?

 

[DSM1G90]

I've seen 10 to 35 bucks for a decent battery at a local pick-a-part yard, but solely depends on the locale.

 

[Cdc1221]

I wouldnt pay more than $20 if i were you. Me personally, i wouldnt use one from a junkyard period. But each to his (or her ) own

 

[undefined0000]

Did you test your voltage with the car running. If you don't have a multimeter, get one. One of the best cheap things I ever bought. A battery can supply 12.6v but still be weak/low on cranking amps.

 

[talonxgirl]

No, but we'll do that. Should I be checking it as I start it or after it's started? And I don't know if this is normal or not cause i never paid attention before, but I've noticed that when I'm driving at night the headlights dim a little and then brighten again.

 

[Dayonaise]

I had almost the same issue and my lights would dim out but only when i put the brakes on, my battery tested 12.8v which I thought was fine but then it started to stall out on me when braking so i replaced the battery and voila!!! no more issues.
In short yes replace your battery I would advise trying to get your hands on a new one rather than used they run around $100

 

[talonxgirl]

Yeah, now that I think about it , the lights dim usually under a load.

 

[kleenf4i]

if , when taking a reading from the volt meter,while running, it dont read at least 14v. its a bad alternator. to be certain while cranking, if it drops any less than 12.6v its DEFIANTLY a bad battery.

 

[WES_393]

No, but we'll do that. Should I be checking it as I start it or after it's started? And I don't know if this is normal or not cause i never paid attention before, but I've noticed that when I'm driving at night the headlights dim a little and then brighten again.

Definitely a sign of a weak charging system. My Spyder did the same thing and within 5k miles the alternator and battery both kicked the bucket.

Like I said, go down to your local parts store (Oreilly would be best) and ask them to test your charging system. In 2 minutes the computer will tell you if it's a weak battery, dead diode in the alternator, missing ground, etc. No need to fumble with a voltmeter or use backyard tricks, it will tell you exactly what the problem is.

 

[DSM1G90]

it dont read at least 14v. its a bad battery

More like a shot Alternator.

Alternators go due to various reasons like: heavy amperage drain from accessories, age, bad batteries that can't keep a charge, bad rebuilds with weak parts, jump starting a lot of vehicles, et.al.

I lost my alternator due to trying to jump start a pickup in which the thing wouldn't turn over along with a lot of cranking by the pickup. I toasted that alternator royally in a few days afterwards - my lights were flickering along with dim and bright operations. My bad on that one.

The regulator is gone since it's not regulating output voltage to the battery...since you're tagging the terminals from a VOM across the battery while the motor is running in idle.

Dimming and brightening headlight while driving at night is a common sign of an Alternator beginning to fail .. and been there and done that many times.

If the voltage coming from the battery during idle drops quite a bit when you pop the headlights on is a good sign of a tired Alternator since the voltage drop should be less than a volt when you pop the headlights on on a idling motor

Time for either a rebuild of yours, or a reman Alternator.

Good luck - DSM

 

[talonxgirl]

Oh wow. Well, I've killed the car several times in the past few months from leaving lights on or accidentally leaving it on accessory. But we always put it on a charger and waited until it was charged before trying to start it.

 

[kleenf4i]

More like a shot Alternator.

oh man, this is what i meant. i have no idea why i wrote battery( maybe the beer yesterday). The word "battery" , i usedthe first time time in the previous post should be changed to alt. thank you dsm for catching that. Man, that was a really bad mess up in writing.ill go fix my previous post.

 

[undefined0000]

Oh wow. Well, I've killed the car several times in the past few months from leaving lights on or accidentally leaving it on accessory. But we always put it on a charger and waited until it was charged before trying to start it.

That can still weaken the battery drastically. Taking it down less than 60% charge and charging it up a lot of times will cause issues. (Ever have a laptop/phone battery that just randomly wouldn't keep charge?)

 

[talonxgirl]

Oops. Well, I'm going to see about borrowing our friend's battery that he just put in his eclipse today just to see if it helps anything. But the car seems to have quit acting up altogether, so I don't even know if I should bother with anything, since I probably won't notice a difference.

 

[DSM1G90]

Nothing really wrong with doing a good drain on a wet-cell battery, for they need that trickle charge once in a blue moon while.

It keeps them healthy when they get cycled once in a great while.

But true: too many times on drain and deep cycle charge will drastically weaken them since the plates inside the battery becomes coated with corrosion. (yea, my laptop battery, bein an Iion battery and two years old, have bit the dust real bad-time for a new one..)

 

[ChiTownHussla]

Dude. Govan buy a 10$ multimeter from walmart, ks mart, or autozone. This is your best friend for finding electrical issues check battery voltage with car off. Then check while cranking. If car doesn't crank, then touch the battery positive lead oncthe starter solenoid and the small switch for ignition which is also on starter. This will essentially bypass the key and if allvis healthy, the car should crank Everytime no issues. What this does is bypass the key completely so it's like you are manually cranking car with no key. Make sure your ignition is on so car will turn on. Call me if u need more info. 8474770789

 

[talonxgirl]

Well, the Talon's fixed again. For now. Lol. And it actually turned out that it was the ignition switch afterall. So much for hoping for something simple. Lol. But the switch developed a short and somehow managed to take out the dash lights, taillights, and fog light with it. I never would have thought it could all tie together, since everything seems so unrelated and they all waited about four months to give out after the previous thing gave out. That's all I can think of unless the shop decided to do some work for free, since the car came back with everything working again. I wish I would have thought to replace the ignition switch a year ago when the dash lights went out.

I don't understand why this car likes to be so complicated. I think I need to start calling it Christine II.