99 Nissan Quest will not start

Maintenance/Repairs
1

Van will not start, battery has been tested and has a charge. Have tried to jump start the van and that will get the electrical system working but will not turn over the engine. I’ve had issues with the security system in the past not allowing the car to start, but past fixes fail to work this time.

2

“Have tried to jump start the van and that will get the electrical system working but will not turn over the engine.”

  • When key is turned to “on” nothing electrical works.
  • When battery is “jumped” then electrical works, but car won’t crank.
  • " . . . will not turn over the engine" means that it not only won’t start, but it won’t even crank over.
    Is this all correct ?

Have you removed and cleaned all cables attached to the battery, the battery, and cable connections at the other ends of the cables ?

CSA

3
  • When key is turned to “on” nothing electrical works. Correct
  • When battery is “jumped” then electrical works, but car won’t crank. Correct
  • " . . . will not turn over the engine" means that it not only won’t start, but it won’t even crank over. Will crank over about half the time, otherwise just a click

And battery cleaned, cables cleaned both ends.

Now for the update, after letting it sit overnight, I have full electrical power, lights come on, radio, etc. But it still will not crank, only a rapid clicking. Tried to jump it and that gets the engine to turn over but still will not start. I am guessing starter at this point but that still does not explain the previous issues with zero electrical power.

4

Yes it does, a starter that is binding will draw all the available current from the battery, nothing will work. Sometimes a jump start will provide enough current to get the motor to crank, but not crank fast enough to get it started.

A bad battery is far more likely to cause the symptoms you describe. When a battery goes bad, it most often is due to an internal short. This can be due to flakes from the plates touching each other or the plates swelling up or warping until they touch. Sometimes this can be intermittent at first which would explain the difference after sitting overnight.

When you go to jumpstart the vehicle, the shorted battery is sucking a portion of the juice from the jumper cables, You may get enough current of get the starter to crank, but it wont crank fast enough for the engine to start. If it did start, the battery could easily overload the alternator and burn out the diodes so that you would need both a battery and an alternator, so maybe its a good thing that it didn’t start.

I would suggest that you remove the battery and get it load tested before you invest in a new starter.

5

Thanks for the response keith, that cleared up a lot of questions.

I did remove the battery and had it tested, it was not the issue. Got the van to the shop so we’ll see what they have to say.

6

Did the jumper cables from the other car get very warm, or even hot? If so, then there’s a tremendous amount of juice being pulled, which would point to a power short to ground somewhere on your van.

Chase