Shashank Sabniveesu

Life of a car series: It’s 8 years! And your car just won’t start (Part-1)

A.k.a Help me! Oh my god! I can’t just start my car. What do I do now?.

Assuming you got your basic checked off such as

Gear system of car is in ‘Parked’ state
There is enough fuel etc.

You might be having one or mroe fo these factors affecting the car:

The car was left unstarted for more than a week or so
The car is in an unusually colder climate due to a change of location/just the weather

One of the following systems is failing:

Car Battery: The same thing that also keeps the entire electrical system powered - Your lights, dashboard, audio system
Alternator: The device that charges your battery using the engine power while car is running. Tell me, did you ever connect your car battery to your wall socket next to your iPhone at night. Nah? Then who has ben charging it all the time, eh!?
Starter: A small device, mostly unreachable from the hood, that intitially kick starts when you start the car after turning it off. This is the thing that responds to your ignition at first when you press the button/turn the key on

So, we have are to do the following

Jump start your car so you can drive to a place that does full battery-alternator-starter (colloquially, “battery system”) test such as Autozone
Ask a friendly rep at Autozone to do a full system check explaining them the situation

Then based on their guidance, plan to replace soon/buy and get it replaced then and then there. Installation by Autozone is free!

My costs

I spent a whole week since I have another car at my disposal. In short, here’s the series of events:

Oct 02 2022: After a 1.5 months of not starting the car, the car just won’t start. – What did I do? In another car, drove to O’Reilly Auto Parts, purchased really long jumpstart cables for around $29.99. Used the car I drove in to jump the car. Car started and ran well for 2 days
Oct 18 2022: After about 12 days of not starting the car, the car again won’t start – What did I do? Gave it until Oct 22, 2022. Then, used the handy-dandy jumpstart cables to jump the battery. This time, no luck! Came back and tried after 2 hrs. and the car started fine. Drove it for 2 days
Oct 23 2022: After 1 day of driving, again, the car wouldn’t start – What did I do? Blaming it on he days that are getting cold due to October, I kept using the other vehicle until Oct 27 when I attempted jumping the battery again. No luck
Oct 28 2022: Called 3 local service shops. Everyone asked to call a preferred/otherwise towing company first. Towing rates were about $90-$95 – What did I do? A well-known store nearby has tie ups with an established Auto Insurance to offer a flat pricing - Always $74.99! Arranged for towing but the guy that came in was wonderfully proactive. Despite being a towing-only guy, asked me what the problem is, used a portable NOCO Boost Pro jump starter box and car immediately got to work. He suggested that I could either go to Autozone first, learn what the problem is and then either do it myself by watching a few YouTube videos or then approaching an actual repair shop. Alternatively he suggested I directly go to the repair shop and let them figure out and fix the problem. In either case, as long as the car is not turned off, the car doesn’t need a tow! :D – What did I learn? The guy explained the other method would likely have delivered ‘just enough power that is required for its system which wasn’t adequate for my car’

I read around and went onto Amazon to order a Link required that got delivered via ‘Overnight shipping’

Oct 30 2011: Found out the included jumper cables were too short! Frustrated but yet tried to make it work. Surprisingly there were no sparks unlike in the ‘Jumpstart using another vehicle’ method. Drove off to Autozone. Autozone said they couldn’t test this battery as it had no charge at all at the time and had to charge it on their own at first before it can be tested. Took about 1 hour and then tested it to conclude that the battery isn’t holding any charge at all.

Since I elected to purchase a new battery ($209.90 + 10% tax) in their story, the installation was free. In fact, for the test, they freely removed the battery and thereafter putting in a new one instead of the old had to be free as well!

Once the battery is installed, I requested the person to run the ful system test again and everything looked great! I adjusted my clock (and turned up the volume which went to zero :D) and off I drove to write this piece.

Did I skip any detail you felt was important? Do you wish I explained any piece better? If so, please Tweet your reply or Open an Issue referencing the title.

See you again soon!