My 96 Jeep Cherokee won't start or turn over.
The idiot lights barely illuminate, the radio clock doesn't show, my interior light seems OK. However, I charged my battery and it read 13.5 volts.
Could this be a switch, relay or ???
Right after I posted, I went and disconnected the battery for a couple of minutes. Reconnected, it started. My question is: What is the cause and can I do something to fix the problem?
thanks,
New battery.
It could be the cables, in particular the ground.
However, make sure you have some other way of starting first, then test your battery. Use a charger or whatever you have to get it up to 13.5 to 13.7 volts again. Then turn your headlights on and leave them on for
10 minutes. Measure the battery voltage again. If it dropped to where it cant start the car, you have a defunct battery that is just taking a skin charge. You dont mention the make/model of the battery and how old it is.If not the battery, take your voltmeter on low setting. Turn on something like the parking lights and measure from the battery ground post to the chassis. 0.2 volts is the limit, but anything over a few hundredths of a volt tends to indicate bad grounding.
If that aint it, take the voltmeter to the hot side and measure across every connector, starting with the hot post [not the connector, the post itself] to the back of the alternator.
Any voltage at all across a connection, take it apart and polish it up with a brass brush and reconnect.
The starter is a bit harder, go from the battery post to the big post on the starter, and hit the starter. No more than 0.2 volts end to end.
If disconnecting and reconnecting seems to have fixed the problem, the first thing to look for is corrosion on the connectors.
Disconnecting and reconnecting also resets the computer. The other thing to think of is sometimes batteries fail at the terminals (they detach from the plates inside)
I'd take the battery into a local PepBoys/Autozone/Canadian Tire/etc and have them test the battery. (most places do it for free)
I'm in agreement with the above, the first thing I would do is clean your terminals well AND the inside of your cable ends, then re connect.
Taking it for a free testing couldn't hurt.
K.
How many cables should I check? Obviously the two on the battery. I only see two other ground cables. Is there more?
The two connected to the battery are the most likely to cause problems. Just disconnect from the battery posts, take a little piece of sandpaper and sand the posts and the inside of the connector until they're shiny, put them back together, tighten the clamps, and you should be good to go until the battery dies of old age.
The others, the ground connections and the ones going into the starter motor, don't cause problems near as often as the ones on the battery. If cleaning the ones on the battery fix the problem, I wouldn't worry about the others other than maybe to take a look at them with a flashlight.
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