My friend has a 3rd Gen, 1990 maxima 5 speed. I thought i would post here to see if i can give him some insight into his problem. I have a 4th gen so im a little less familiar with a 3rd gen.

He left the lights on today and it drained the battery. He put a charger on it and let it charge and now the headlights work dash lights come on, but when he turns the key over its a no-go. no clicking or anything as usual. Battery terminals are free of corrosion and tight.

He said its always started without issue. And the battery is only 4 months old, he bought it when he bought his max.

Anyone have and ideas?

 

check to make sure the battery isnt undersized. i ran into the same problem and even jumping the car would just get it started. there is no clicking so it isnt a starter. chargers are weak anyways. pop start it and get it to your local auto shop

 

Thats a good point, ive always bought at least the min. cranking amps for the particular car itself, usually ill buy over whats rated and ive never had a prob like that so i wouldnt have ever thought about that.

I already told him to try popstarting it, and he's never done it before but to me its really easy, so either he didnt do it right or something is wrong. He said it didnt work. So theres a 50% chance he dunno how to popstart, or 50% he did it right and it just didnt crank still.

I'll ask him today about the cranking amps of the battery he got. I remember my old hot rod i used to have.. i bought the biggest battery i could get it was like 950 CCA and i still had issue cranking the big block V8 at times.

Dave

Anyone have more suggestions?

 

Could also be the clutch pedal button that tells the car the clutch is being pressed. I've had many problems with that stupid thing keeping my car from starting. If you look near the firewall inline with the clutch pedal you'll be able to see it.

 

solution 1. lose battery cable, tell him to make sure the connections at the battery are on pretty tight,

solution 2. battery not charged enough, take 12 hours to fully charge a dead battery