Quote:
Originally Posted by nissubaru
I'm a little confused on the order of events leading up to your post. Have you been having to jump the car every time? It sounds like you jumped it once when you found the battery dead, went to AutoZone for a replacement, swapped it in. Car started up just fine but after a day or so of driving it wouldn't start again? At this point you went ahead and installed a new starter and then the car wouldn't start. You then somehow went back to AutoZone (did you jump the car?) and got another new battery, which now supposedly doesn't work at all?
What's confusing me is at which point are you able to start the car and at which point are you stuck jumping it with the under hood connections? After replacing the battery the first time you said the car started up just fine, then you replace the battery AGAIN with another new, good battery, and now it doesn't start at all? If that's truly what you're saying then I would be inclined to look into the E90 power cable recall to see if the symptoms match up with what you're seeing
https://www-odi.nhtsa.dot.gov/acms/c...3V044-6848.PDF
If the car starts fine with a healthy battery then I would definitely look into your ground strap on the drivers side as others have already mentioned. In my opinion you don't have to jack the car to see if the wire is all shitty and green, you can get a good idea by using a multimeter . I would do this by trying a few different ground points on your negative lead on the multimeter:
1. Start with your positive lead on the positive cable connected to the alternator. Ground the negative lead on the alternator housing or wherever you were seeing the 14V at idle. This should be your best reading and if your alternator isn't outputting 14V when grounded to the block or the alternator itself, then your alternator is bad. That doesn't seem to be the case here though.
2. Take another measurement using the same positive cable on the alternator, but this time use a non-engine block piece of metal as your ground. I like the strut bolts since it's part of the body. If your ground was shitty like mine then you might get a reading like 13.5V here, which as you can probably tell is a .5V drop (not good)
3. This is probably the ultimate test, but with the car still running go to the back where the battery is and take a reading using the usual positive and negative terminals of the battery (ground on the negative). If your reading comes out significantly less than the reading at the alternator, then you probably have a grounding issue. Also, the numbers I used above are just for reference, the numbers you see may be different, point is you're looking for these values to drop as you make your way towards the battery. |
Yes, i have been using a jumper box anytime the car doesnt start. Ill do the diagnostic test you described later on today. Ill also check out that ground strap.
Thank you to everyone who responded!