Help Needed!

[hels147]

Hi - am wondering if anyone can help me? My car was fine last Friday - drove approx 120 motorway miles. Parked it in a garage for three days and when I went to start it the engine was dead. Completely, totally and utterly dead. No clock, no stereo, no light on the dash if I opened the door with the keys in the ignition! It was a new Battery last year, although I might have left the interior light on by mistake! Anyway, managed to get some jump leads and got some juice into the Battery and the starter motor turning over fine, but the car would not start! We tried for some time and even got the Battery good enough for the started motor to turn over without the 'donor car' feeding into the battery. I called the breakdown people and they couldn't find what was wrong and just recovered me to home. I wanted to see if anyone knows of whether there is a simple reason for the non-start after a fully flat battery before I go to a garage and potentially get ripped off!

Thanks

[man-bing]

If you have fully discharged the Battery by leaving the interior light on for 3 days, it would of suffered but not sure by how much thought.

If you say, its turning the starter motor but not enough to start the car, then the Battery might not have a big enough charge within it push it to a atart, you be surprised just how much of a charge it takes to start a car!!

Get a Battery charger, and try fully charging it overnight and see if that helps, otherwise you could be looking for a new battery.

[madvinegar]

True. The Battery consumes a lot of energy to start the car and this is why it should be almost completely charged i.e. over 14 Volt.

On the other hand, if the Battery is indeed fully charged and the car does not start you should look into some other factors like the quality of gas (and the condition of your gas pump), the condition of your spark plugs and also how clean is the throttle body.

[Bong Water]

How strange, i've had mine two days and something similar happened to mine but slightly different as the stereo and dash fire up and the starter clicks but engine doesnt turn over

It was on a forecourt for a month and apparently what happens is when it goes back to normal use the Battery can get damaged and it stops holding charge as well as it did

I've not got it back yet so i'll let you know what it is when I do

[molveees]

Its almost certainly your Battery. You could either recharge it with a high current charger as trickle charge sometimes wont charge these batteries properly or take it back for a replacement as It should still be under warranty. It would be very unusual for a corolla to die just like that. I use Varta D340 which is perfect for winter starts.

[hels147]

Thanks for all your replies.

It seems it was not the Battery that was the final problem! We tried to jump start it from another car (a 2l diesel) but no joy. However, it held enough charge overnight for the starter motor to turn over strongly the following morniing withough the donor car! I called the breakdown people and the guy who turned up was also a mechanic. He used all his gizmo's and gadgets on the car, even ran the diagnostic tool and he could not get it to start. The conclusion he came to was one of three; it was something only Toyota's diagnostics could pick up, there was a problem with the imobiliser, or there was a physical blockage in the fuel system.

I got towed for around 60 miles up the motorway, hitting what seemed like every single pot hole on the way, to a service station where they were going to swop me to a different recovery company. When we got there he put the jump starter on it 'just to see' and it started right away!

Been so busy at work that I haven't had time to take it to a garage yet, however I have been driving it for a week now and have had no problems at all with it starting (touch wood)!

The guy looking over the car asked if the fuel filter(?) had ever been changed as he thinks it may have been detritus in the fuel system. I have no idea as the car has always been service at main dealers since new, (I know this because I bought it off my sister!). He implied that the air filter had never been changed and that may be an indication of what had or had not been done. The last service the car had was 80,000 miles (last Oct), so am going to check what should have been done at that and also what my paperworks says was done, before contacting the dealership.

Does anyone know if there is any way I can check if filters etc have been changed? The car has always gone to the same dealership for service etc and my parents also bought their toyota from, and have it serviced, there. I am doubtful the dealership would claim work had been carried out, that hadn't been, however the reputation of car mechanics is not particulary good, especially for women car owners, so I don't know who to believe!

[CorollaD4D]

checking air filter is easy. just open the airbox and have a look at it. if it looks dirty it needs changing if its clean its ok. i dont know why dealers only 'inspect' the air filters. its such a cheap part to supply and easy to fit imo should be changed as often as possible. i change my own cars air filter every 5000.