I couldn’t jump start my 2008 PT Cruiser, but I put it on a trickle charger and it worked
Great, did you have a question?
I did, sorry I didn’t make that clear. Wondering why I could not jump start car, but it would accept a trickle charge. Pretty sure I have jumped it in the past.
You haven’t explained how you tried to jump start the car, why you were trying to jump start it, how far down the battery was - no crank, just lights, slow crank no start, no crank dim lights. How old the battery is. All useful to answering your question. With so little info, all I can say is “I dunno, but at least it started”
Ok, with no jumper cables, I’d get that dead battery clicking sound and then all dash lights would go out. Turn key off and do it all over again and same thing. I put multi meter on and got 11.5 volts.
Battery is a year old cheapy from Walmart. 1 year warranty just expired. Then put jumpers on from my running Jetta and got same thing as before, clicking. Good contact pos/neg. Trickle charge was on for 6 or so hours and fired right up. I just went out and started it, quite surprised after a couple nights below freezing, Put multi meter on it and I’m getting 14.8 volts, so it charging. I’ve got no dash warning lights. The thing that has me confused is why I’m not able to Jump start from car. I’m hoping it’s the battery conectors, I bought some good ones at amazon. The factory ones seem cheap. 2 bands thin of metal. What do you think? Thanks
Actually many people don’t recommend jumping from one vehicle to another anymore . There are just too many instances of electrical damage to both vehicles ( very expensive ). That is why the rechargeable battery packs are used.
Notice it took 3 posts for you to explain what is actually going on so you could get a good answer.
I’d say the jumpers themselves are bad or you were just not getting good contact. Plus, if the battery was really drained, you would need to leave the jumpers on a while to bring the battery back. If the battery shows better than about 12.4 volts or more after it charges up a while, I’d say it is OK, but now you need to determine if you have a parasitic draw draining the battery overnight. If the PT has an aftermarket stereo, alarm (on a PT???) or remote starter, assume one of those is the culprit. If not, the task gets a little harder. Eric The Car Guy on Youtube has a good video showing how to do a parasitic draw test.
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Agree with @Mustangman, many cheap jumper cables do not have the current carrying capacity to start a car with a completely dead battery. You would have to leave the cables on for a while to charge the dead battery. Essentially a trickle charge.
I have not jumped from my cars batteries in a long time, I use portable jump pack, my daughters car has a pack with an air compressor. Don’t have to worry about my cars electronics or lining up cars in a tight spot.
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Yup, I see that at work all the time
Sometimes, we’ll just leave the cables attached between the running truck and the dead battery in the other truck for 15 or 20 minutes
That’s usually enough so that even a truck with a large battery will start
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So, I bought one of those Stanly jump start units, like AAA bring to start your car, obviously not as good. It was fully charged and wouldn’t start it. 1000 peak amps and 500 amps starting power. That’s what got me thinking the terminals were bad
Thanks Steve. I bought a Stanly jump pack. 1000 peak amps and 500 starting amps and that wouldn’t start it. That’s why I was thinking it was the terminals
Rick , all of your posts are seen by everyone so you do not need to reply to each one with the same info.
Is the battery dead again? If not perhaps the starter is failing.
Battery terminals are easy to check, they are either clean or corroded.
A $50 Walmart battery is only useful to get a car running for sale.
I wouldn’t trust anything from harbor freight to jump my car. Check out Project Farm’s YouTube video on car jump packs. It is excellent.
+1
I think that this is the most likely explanation for the OP’s problem.
You sure? Sometimes it can look like you should have a good connection, but something isn’t making contact as well as it should.
Aside from that, what the other guys said. Most people run jumper cables from those dumb emergency kits you get from relatives you don’t like at Christmas. They look like this:
whereas real jumper cables look like this:
Note how much thicker the wire is.
You have been to my house at Christmas .
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