1998 honda civic 120K miles. uptodate on maintenance. slow to turn past few days and then stopped. jumpstarted it and worked for one day and then stopped. replaced brand new battery last night and worked yesterday evening. this morning again slow to turn and wont start, lights etc work. car is in a garage and has been in the 40-50s lately. could I have installed one of the wires incorrectly to drain the battery overnight. not had a chance to try jumpstarting it again, yet. thanks
You need to have the alternator tested. Many auto parts stores will do that for free.
You might also need new primary power cables/terminals.
You should also check for a key off parasitic drain. There are plenty of guides for how to do that on the web.
It takes several hours of charging to fully revive a drained battery.
Jumping it and driving for 30 minutes won’t do the job.
Get a small (< 10 amps) automatic charger, “battery tender” or equiv, and charge overnight.
Sound batteries do not just go dead for no reason…Virtually all decent repair shops have an electrical system tester that can check the battery, alternator and scan for parasitic loads all in a few minutes…First, determine what is wrong, then fix the problem…Guesswork can be VERY expensive…