Battery/power Problems?

[Harley]

Hello,

I was wondering if anyone else has had this kind of experience with their Rx330. Last saturday, when cranking up the car, the engine didn't crank. It made a clicking noise like when someone has a problem with their starter. I cranked it again, and it cranked up fine the second time. To make a long story short, my husband thought that it could be a battery problem so we charged the battery with a charger for about an hour and then didn't have any further problems starting up the car.

Then today, I put the key in that position where the car is not completely off, but one can play the radio, etc. (I have never had issues with the radio while the car was "off.") So, I'm in my car listening to the radio and then I notice that the radio starts crackling like when one is losing a signal. So I thought it might just be that one station so I changed it to a few stations... they were all like that.

I turned the engine back on and the radio worked fine. Anyone have any ideas? Could it be that my battery is having problems and needs to be replaced? Thanks in advance.

-Harley

[RX in NC]

With intermittent electrical problems, you always start with the battery. Don't assume that because your battery is only a year or two old that it can't have problems - it certainly can. Several weeks ago I had to replace the battery in my daughter's Grand Cherokee. I had purchased the battery for her in March 2004, and it was already starting to fail. Symptoms included slow starts, then no start and it wouldn't take a jumpstart from my Ram's battery. We had a three-year full-replacement on her battery so it was just a matter of me returning it to the auto parts store and picking up a new one at no charge. Problem solved.

The original battery in my wife's 2000 Lexus RX300 is still operational and seems to be fine even though it is now more than five-and-a-half years old. I believe that it's the longest I've ever kept an original battery in more than 35 years of driving. Now that I've said that, and with the history of problems we've had with her vehicle, I expect that battery to die within a couple of months....