Car is dead

I went out to start my car when i turned the key it made a sound and then every thing was dead. My husband said the battery was dead so we charged it over night. When I tried to start it after charging the lights in the car were on but when I turned the key nothing dead.

how do you know the battery took a charge? Battery could be unable to take a charge. Have the battery checked out.

The battery may be bad but you should clean the battery connections using a battery post cleaning brush just to make sure you don’t have a connection problem.

Please accept my condolences on the death of your car.

You need a new battery.

Dead batteries don’t accept a charge.

You need a new battery.

If you had told us the year, make, and model of your dead car it would have helped immensely. As it is all we have to go on is what you’ve told us, and based on that little, tiny bit of information we’re left to conclude:

Dead battery.

Many auto parts stores will test the battery and the charging system free. I suggest you take advantage of this.

More detail, please. Brand of car, year, model, engine, mileage, automatic or stick shift, etc. If it is an automatic shift it from park to neutral and try again. If it is a shift car, be certain you have pressed the clutch all the way down before turning the key.

Classic symptoms of a dead battery. Today’s batteries can work fine one day and be dead as doornail the next.

It is a new battery. We tryed to jump start the car and it wouldn’t jump start. Then my husband took a crescent wrench and loosened then tightened the cable and the car worked fine. the cable connection has been cleaned by a mechanic many times. there must be something wrong with the cable but the mechanic says no.

The Battery is new. It takes a charge. It has somthing to do with the cables but how to fix the cable. isn’t it hard to put new cables on a car.

Your reply is funny I got a kik out of it. I have a 1991 Buick Park Ave. v6 No the battery is new. the cable just keeps getting loose I guess. Because When my husband loosened and then tightened the cable it worked fine. The cables have been cleaned by the mechanic many times. Maybe it needs new cables but the machanic says no. Isn’t it hard to put new cables in a car?

The battery charged because when we tightened the cable it worked fine. But it does this all the time and it’s frustrating. The cables have been cleaned several times.

No, not hard at all for most cars. Disconnect the ground cable from the battery first. Then the positive cable. Replace the old positve cable with the correct new one. You need to get the proper cables from your auto parts store, they are not universal so each car has cables made for it. Then do the same for the negative cable. Then reconnect the positive cable to the battery first, then the negative and you are done.

You will need to reset your clock and put in the security code to get your car radio working again. If you want to preserve all your car’s electronic “settings” they you can buy a small device that plugs into your cigarette lighter or any DC power outlet that will provide enough power to maintain the settings while the battery is disconnected.

The easy part of the job is locating the connections at the battery. The toughest part is locating the connections at the other end of the cables. Sometimes they are easy to access and on some cars they are very difficult to access. If you can’t find the connection points away from the battery easily then you will need to get the car up on a lift or jacks stands. At that point you have to decide if you can do this yourself or take it to a shop for the repair.

I think it is safe to assume that a Buick Park Avenue has an automatic transmission.
On that basis, it is possible that the neutral safety switch has become quirky, so moving the shift lever from Park to Neutral is a good idea.