My name is Paddy and searched your site on live.com while searching the solution of my car problem. I drive a Nissan Maxima and it never gave me any problem till recently. I will try to give entire facts about this car for proper diagnose. I moved from Phoenix AZ to Seattle six months back. Car ran fine and did not have any issue till couple of weeks back.
1: Couple of weeks back I took my car to Jiffy Lube for oil change and I turned in ignition off while waiting for my number to come. When I tried to start the car after 10 min, it started giving click click click sound but it was not turning the engine. I could not figure out anything but Jiffy Lube guys got it started by jump start. I thought it was just a battery issue and I did not pay any attention to this.
2: After couple of days, while trying to start my car in the morning, it took at least 5 second to start it. It started cranking and then it started normally after couple of tries. During the same day in the evening when I try to start the car after 12 hrs, it started giving me same problem described in bullet 1. Means it was just doing click click click and no engine turn on. I kept trying and it suddenly started in one shelf.
3: Next day morning while going to work, I tried to start the car but no luck this time. It was able to rotate the engine but car did not start. I tried 10-15 times till my battery died. Just cranking …..
4: I thought that it is a spark plug problem and I towed my car to mechanic shop to change the spark plug. He changed the spark plug and jump start the car. It worked fine that day and did not have any problem in starting and driving.
5: When I tried next day, I again had the same problem and car did not start at all and drained entire battery. I tried to jump start it from other car but it kept cranking but no explosion.
Mechanic also suggested me to change the starter. Per him, starter is draining 450 amps from battery and that’s what seems to be the problem but I am not sure whether starter is the problem as I changed it just couple of yrs back. He was saying that starter seems to have some short circuit that’s what its draining that much amps which is not giving enough spark to spark plugs for explosion.
I am not sure whether this information is relevant or not but before all this problems happened, I think there was a short circuit in my audio system. I was very intermittent and I could feel it because of irritating sound from my speakers.
I will highly appreciate if you can help me to guide in right direction with this problem as my financial position does not permit to take this once again to mechanic and spend $500.
Please let me know if you have any question.
Paddy
Hi Paddy,
So have you replaced the battery yet? Sounds like you have a weak/bad battery at least. I would replace it and see what happens. If the battery is weak and not turning the engine over fast enough, the engine will not start. Since you did not have a running or starting problem prior to the Jiffy Lube visit, I would assume your battery is just weak.
Did you have a complete electrical test when you got the starter replaced? He checked the starter draw, but did he test the battery load? That is the first thing you need to do in a situation like this.
Blessings,
Austin Davis