Battery Issue I Hope

[rvgraham]

My '99 has started hard the last couple of days, and I have guests coming this weekend expecting the grand sight-seeing tour!

It doesn't "click", it seems to engage the solenoid, but then doesn't have the guts to turn the engine. The idiot lights come on but nothing else happens. Turn the key back and try again, and on the second or third try it fires right up! I'm assuming this is because I get lucky and one cylinder fires well enough to just take over where the battery is too weak to turn it more than a fraction of a revolution.

I bought the car in '04, and have taken the car from 50,000 miles to 170,000 miles, mostly light highway. It still has the same battery as when I bought it. I'm thinking it's due for a battery anyway since the one in it is at least 5 years and 120,000 miles old, so I may as well go ahead and do that first before I worry about any issues with the starter. I measured the voltage at the battery posts this morning and it read 12.3. I found elsewhere it should be at least 12.5. And, in any case, the voltage doesn't tell you much about how many amps it's able to deliver under load.

I priced a battery at Sears for $105, or I could go the Costco or Walmart routes.

Any thoughts?

Bob

[Brett in AK]

My '99 has started hard the last couple of days, and I have guests coming this weekend expecting the grand sight-seeing tour!

It doesn't "click", it seems to engage the solenoid, but then doesn't have the guts to turn the engine. The idiot lights come on but nothing else happens. Turn the key back and try again, and on the second or third try it fires right up! I'm assuming this is because I get lucky and one cylinder fires well enough to just take over where the battery is too weak to turn it more than a fraction of a revolution.

I bought the car in '04, and have taken the car from 50,000 miles to 170,000 miles, mostly light highway. It still has the same battery as when I bought it. I'm thinking it's due for a battery anyway since the one in it is at least 5 years and 120,000 miles old, so I may as well go ahead and do that first before I worry about any issues with the starter. I measured the voltage at the battery posts this morning and it read 12.3. I found elsewhere it should be at least 12.5. And, in any case, the voltage doesn't tell you much about how many amps it's able to deliver under load.

I priced a battery at Sears for $105, or I could go the Costco or Walmart routes.

Any thoughts?

Bob

Bob,

I was reading through your posting and thinking: a dead battery cell, dirty battery terminals, bad ground, loose battery cable connections (either end), bad starter solenoid, bad starter. If the battery is that old, it should probably be replaced on general principle. I know, there are some people who will say that their battery lasted for much longer than that, but that is the exception to the rule as opposed to the norm. Then I came to the sentence where you state it fires on one cylinder enough to take over? Now I'm totally confused. That must shake the heck out of the car when it first starts up. Sounds as though there might be more to this problem than what I initially came up with. What I would do first is take the car to Sears or one of the other shops in town and ask them to perform a load test on the battery. They simply hook up two clamps to the battery, push a button and can tell you instantly if your battery is any good. Shouldn't be any charge for the test either. If that isn't the culprit, then start eliminating the items I listed first and take it from there. A difference of .2 of a volt won't make any difference. Let us know what you discover.

Brett

[rvgraham]

I was reading through your posting and thinking: a dead battery cell, dirty battery terminals, bad ground, loose battery cable connections (either end), bad starter solenoid, bad starter. If the battery is that old, it should probably be replaced on general principle. I know, there are some people who will say that their battery lasted for much longer than that, but that is the exception to the rule as opposed to the norm. Then I came to the sentence where you state it fires on one cylinder enough to take over? Now I'm totally confused. That must shake the heck out of the car when it first starts up. Sounds as though there might be more to this problem than what I initially came up with. What I would do first is take the car to Sears or one of the other shops in town and ask them to perform a load test on the battery. They simply hook up two clamps to the battery, push a button and can tell you instantly if your battery is any good. Shouldn't be any charge for the test either. If that isn't the culprit, then start eliminating the items I listed first and take it from there. A difference of .2 of a volt won't make any difference. Let us know what you discover.

Brett

I mean more like, turn the key, and the battery generates enough juice to turn the engine maybe only a few degrees, let's say 45° ... So, sometimes, in that very limited amount of spin, no cylinder succeeds in firing, and the engine stops turning because the battery is just not potent enough any more. So then you try again, and again the battery and starter only manage to turn the engine 45°, but this time you get lucky and at least one cylinder fires and this pops the engine through a full rev and all 8 cylinders take over and it runs fine. Basically I'm describing how any engine starts every time it starts, I'm just breaking the scenario down to diagnose what I hope is a dying battery. :)

Bob

[jcrome04]

any CELs??

If it's not "clicking" It's probably the starter gone.

and that's not for the faint of heart I hear! :D

[rvgraham]

any CELs??

If it's not "clicking" It's probably the starter gone.

and that's not for the faint of heart I hear! :D

By not "Clicking" I mentioned it was getting past the solenoid engagement, and successfully turning the engine a tiny bit.

I went ahead and put in a battery from WalWart, we'll see how it works in the morning, gonna leave it outside the garage tonight to stress it a bit harder. It's starting fine right now.

Bob

[rvgraham]

Strange, when I restarted it after swapping the battery, the front defog button light was blinking amber...

The next time I started it the HVAC controls were normal but the "Check VSC" warning was displayed and the button wouldn't turn it on or off.

The next time after that all seemed normal.

I guess the systems need a few on-off cycles to all reset to normal.

Bob

[jcrome04]

Because everything was reset by disconnecting the battery.

[rvgraham]

So, good news, the car was fine this morning... Battery was all it was

Bob

[jcrome04]

fingers crossed

[Brett in AK]

So, good news, the car was fine this morning... Battery was all it was

Bob

Bob,

Glad everything worked out for you!

Brett

[rvgraham]

So, good news, the car was fine this morning... Battery was all it was

Bob

Bob,

Glad everything worked out for you!

Brett

So I'm up to 170K + now and not a single (non-maintenance) repair, except some truly minor stuff that the dealer took care of under the cpo warranty! I guess that's more par for the course here than "news" B)

Even the maintenance has been ridiculously minor. The dealer changed the water pump at 99k because it was leaking (wink wink!) and swapped the timing belt for just the $50 cost of the belt while he was in there. He also replaced a few front end parts to tighten up the front end a bit. All I've done out of pocket has been: Tires (2 sets), front brakes, oil (synthetic every 5k) and wiper blades!

May be the cheapest car I've ever owned!

Bob

[jcrome04]

That's awesome dude.

[Threadcutter]

So, good news, the car was fine this morning... Battery was all it was

Bob

Bob,

Glad everything worked out for you!

Brett

So I'm up to 170K + now and not a single (non-maintenance) repair, except some truly minor stuff that the dealer took care of under the cpo warranty! I guess that's more par for the course here than "news" B)

Even the maintenance has been ridiculously minor. The dealer changed the water pump at 99k because it was leaking (wink wink!) and swapped the timing belt for just the $50 cost of the belt while he was in there. He also replaced a few front end parts to tighten up the front end a bit. All I've done out of pocket has been: Tires (2 sets), front brakes, oil (synthetic every 5k) and wiper blades!

May be the cheapest car I've ever owned!

Bob

I'm notoriously b*tchy when it comes to stealers, but if they replaced all that gear for you @ "99K", you got a real steal. My hat's off to them and you. Conversely, methinks your starter is on it's last legs.......about $1K to fix. Question is, where do you want the car to be when replacement becomes necessary; on the side of the road or in the shop, not having been towed there(?......)

[eatingupblacktop]

May be the cheapest car I've ever owned!

Bob

Don't say it too loud, Lexi have good hearing!

[1990LS400]

rvgraham, if your 99 LS owners manual is similar to the one for my 00 LS, there is a procedure in it for resetting the VSC after the battery is disconnected/reconnected. But as you found, the VSC usually resets itself within a few start/drive/stop cycles.

Yesterday afternoon, my next door neighbor and I "talked cars" like we often do. Between the two of us, we have over 33 years experience owning and driving LS400's although he parted with his in 90 LS in 2004. Neither of us have gotten much more than three years out of a battery in an LS. That's a bunch of batteries we've gone through.

If the front defog button light was blinking amber and if you altered HVAC systems's default sensitivity setting that determines how quickly it goes into recirculation mode when it senses foal air outside the car, it may be necessary to reprogram the feature. How to do it is described in your owners manual.

[jcrome04]

I have an optima yellow top I've had in 3 cars for the past.. 3-4 years.