OK guys! My day was going great until just now! My mom asked me to run my sister over to her softball practice, so I went out to my car to warm it up and nothing. I haven't been driving it for the past week. My dad just got a '99 Silverado, so I've kinda been using that just to test it out. Anyway, my car has been sitting in the garage for about a week. It has been kinda cold. Went outside tonight...and it tries, but it won't turn over. I tried jumping it with my mom's '00 Villager, but no luck. Any ideas? It's a '97 SE w/ 55K miles. It's gotta be the battery because all the lights were dim...I turned as many of them off as I could to try and get it started.

I think it's time to get that 5-speed Max I've been dreaming of!

HELP!
-Nick

 

Try jumping it with the Silverado.

The Maxima (95-96 I thought) has a few flaws one of them is the starter. I had to replace mine twice, once at 60,000 and again at 80,000.

If it won't jump start, my moneys on the starter. Luckily its a pretty simple install.

 

The Silverado isn't home! My dad took it to his meeting. Otherwise I would've taken it and not found out about this now. Good thing I discovered this now and not a time when I really need the car.

Grrr...why does it always have to be me?

It HAS to be the battery...all the interior lights are dim and it can barely light up the lights in the gauge cluster. Looks like a new battery is in order for me. I think maybe an Optima!

Anyone else have any ideas?

-Nick

 

OK...I have a technical question here now. I'm outside poking around and I opened a few of those cap thingys on the battery and there is no water at all inside them. Should I add some water to the battery?

-Nick

 

What happen's to your lights when you hook up the jumpers?

 

That would not be a bad idea . Keep in mind you have to add "distilled" water, not tap water. If you have no water in your battery the battery will not charge properly and it will discahrge quicky, also corrosion on the battery cables will occur. So add some distilled water to your batter, clean off your postive and ground cables and then try to jump start it again.

 

How about you try to push start the car. This works especially well when going uphill.

 

if it's still on the stock OEM Nissan battery, those don't last too long. Mine died this year after 3 years of use...

 

Problem solved guys. I went out and got some distilled water. I put some in the 6 "compartments" in the battery. Then I jumped it with my mom's van (Silverado still not back yet." I took it for a nice long drive to charge it up. I didn't fill the "terminals" all the way up though...do you think I should add more water to fill them up?

-Nick

 

I have a water free battery{Optima} so I am not 100% sure. If the battery has a line or something telling you were the max fill point is I would follow it. If there are no instructions I would fill it up 95% of the way. BTW I'm glad you got your problem fixed.

 

I'm glad to here that a simple fix worked for you. I didn't even think about checking that. Like a post above points out, there should be a line inside showing the full point. I wonder if any damage happened by running dry?

 

Nick, I think you should get an Optima battery. It might be of your system. I had the problem with the lights dimming and inability to start to the car too. Remember you now have a good amp with powerful subs. So, either get a cap or battery. After I got the Optima Yellow top, everthing went back to normal.

 

Well, the system isn't in YET. I guess this couldn't come at a better time since I was planning on getting the Optima Yellow Top when I get the stereo in anyways.



-Nick