Pt dead

[Maineiac]

When leaving the drive way my 2002 pt cruiser just stop running. Lost all electrical power and the battery is only 3 month old. I check the negative battery cable and its not grounding. I check the ground stud on the left fender and its not working so I hooked a test light to the motor and the postive battery post doesn't light up. It only lights up when i put the test light to the negative post then to the positive post.

Hope someone can help

[CREWZIN]

So your saying the motor, negative battery cable and the body won't make a ground when the other end of the circuit is a solid positive?

Buy another test light.

[quicksilverdon]

Go to autozone or advanceauto - they have battery cables of different lengths - be sure and get at least as heavy as stock.

[Knotsobright1]

[RNCRUZR]

Are you sure it's not the wiring harness hitting something it shouldn't be?

[Candyman]

Hey their Maineiac,

I would take the Battery back to where you bought it from and get another one under your warranty, and then either have the place you bought it from, or Auto Zone, Pep Boys, etc, check the Battery itself to make sure its not defective, and then check your charging system.

On the Battery itself, they can run a series of three different tests to determine if the battery is good or not. They may perform one, or all three depending on the Tech Here is what they are.

1. Most common is a Load Test in which they put a positive, and negative lead on each terminal from a small hand held tester with an analog meter which reads green for good, or red for bad.

2. Second is to pop the two caps off of the top of the battery, inspect each of the six cells to make sure they all have proper water level, and then check the acidity using a Hydrometer which will tell you if you potentially have a bad cell.

3. Third, you can take a digital Volt Meter and check the Voltage in the battery. If the Voltage is down to 8 Volts or lower, the battery will no longer hold a charge and is no good.

Your Charging System is an easy test in which a Tech at a Store simply takes a Digital Volt Meter, or Multi Meter, takes a Voltage Reading straight from the Battery which should read around 12 Volts. Then they have you start the car and put a load on it by turning on everything like the AC, Stereo, Headlights, and so on and read the drop in the meter. It shoul dhave a slight drop, and then go back up. If however the voltage doesn not go back up, you have a bad alternator, ofr other electrical problem causing your battery to die.

If your new Battery went bad to the point where it is completely dead, caused the car to stall out, and doesn't have enough juice in it to even crank the motor, odds are you have a problem either with your Alternator, or charging system. If its not charging, you car will continue to run for a short time straight off the battery until it drains it down to nothing. If your alternator is pushing out a little juice but not enough to sustain the system, you may prolong the life by a few days, but could wind up at the same cross roads. The test light will still come on, and the interior lights, or headlights may come on off of a surface charge even with a completely drained battery.

The only other thing that could potentially cause a Battery to go completely dead like that would be to use tap water to fill the water levels if they were low. Tap water contains minerals which form a kind of crystallization process known as Dendrite which shorts out the plates in the battery causing the battery to fail within a matter of weeks. Usually people will first try to re-charge these batteries which will burn off the end of the crystal Dendrite, but it will quickly grow back in a matter of a day or two destroying the battery. Their is no way to reverse the process of Dendrite and at that point the battery is junk.

Anyways, like I said, I would take your battery back, have them check it and if its bad, get you a new Battery off your Warranty, and then have an Auto Parts Store, or Mechanic test that charging System.

Please let me know what it turns out to be.

Go easy,

Candyman