DupermanDave

Today I woke up and went to work as normal. Found out I had the day off (I forgot I took today off long ago.) So I go home, decide about 4 hours later to go to lunch, and go to start the truck. The battery is dead. I think I left the auxilary lights on. So I wait until the wife gets home and I try and jump the truck back to life. It won't start with just hooking the jumper cables up, so I let the truck sit while hooked up to the running car. It sit for about 3 minutes before I tried again. Nothing. I heard the starter click once, but that was it. So I let it sit for 7 more minutes, all while revving the running engine to 2 and 3 thousand RPMS. Try and start the truck and I get nothing. Not even a click.

So I hooked the tow straps up to the subaru and the front end of my truck and try and pull it to a start (manual transmission). It started for a minute and sputtered and died. We tried tugging it to a start again but it was a no go. We weren't going too fast and we were running out of roads.

So tomorrow I'm taking yet another day off to have the battery charged at autozone and see what's up.

So why won't my truck start with normal jumper cables? I've jumped many vehicles and never had an issue like this. Usually you connect them and it starts right up. When my alternator went out a few months ago my dad came and we were able to jump it after letting it sit for about 2 minutes of waiting.

dannomite

Are you sure that you don't have a wire loose somewhere? I have been both the jumper and the jumpee on several occasions. I have never had no click unless something was not connected correctly.

DupermanDave

Yes, I double checked all of the connections and even looked for loose wires. I even tried a separate set of jumper cables.

I also cleaned off the battery terminals to make sure there was a good connection.

TNRabbit

Sounds like you have a bad connection to your battery, OR leaving the light on just completely killed it, which can happen. How old is the battery? A complete drain on an old battery can be the kiss of death....

Yota_dude23

I had something similar happen about 8 months back check ur fuse box inside if the plug that is for engine is popped check for a perasytic draw by touching the neg cable to the battery post if there is a little spark then it's some where in the wiring. Turned out on my truck the the driver side tail shorted and when the open wirers touched the frame it short out pop the plug and my battery wouldn't hold a charge good luck hope I could help

nobrainsd

Automotive batteries are not deep cycle batteries. Run them down two or three times to an almost total discharge state and they are done. You may be able to get a charge on the battery with a proper charger. Just trying to trickle charge the battery with the jumper cables would take a really long time. Definitely more than a few minutes. Some chargers can recondition a battery some what so it is worth a try.

Considering you had alternator trouble before and needed to jump the battery I'll bet it is dead at this point.

DupermanDave

Well, I just took the battery to autozone and it has absolutely no charge. It's completely drained. This would be the second time this has happened with this battery, the first being when the alternator died. I'm heading out to get the battery now so I'll see how that goes. I'll also be checking the fuses and wiring again to see what's going on.

aviator

I was going to say it sounds like a completely dead batt.
Make sure you get some of those little felt washers for the posts. I noticed I was having a constant drain and it seems to have been caused by moisture on the top of the batt causing a slight drain frome the post-post short. I put on the washers and the problem seems to have cleared up.
This might help.

DupermanDave

It was a completely dead battery. Starts and drives fine now, so only time will tell if it's a bad alternator.

I already have those little felt rings on my battery. Never had an issue with them. I'd recommend everyone get some for their batter, just in case. They're only $2.