Car won't start - sounds like machine gun
 

I was away on business for a week. Today I went to try and start it and the car wouldn't turn over. Trying to turn the key, the car rat-a-tats like a machine gun, but the car doesn't try to turn over. It doesn't even sound like it gets to the starter. There's juice in the car since all the lights light up.

Would an old battery do that? I'm pretty sure it was the original battery (2k2 with 70k miles). Can I just add distilled water into the battery? The water level looked a little low.

Any other ideas?

Thanks

Jump start it, its a low charge battery. I recomend repleacing the OEM battery with a new one. Once the charge gets low enough the starter solenoid will click like a "machine gun" and won't engage the starter drive.

Get a voltometer and test the voltage. Hopefully you'll have at least 12 volts of juice to start that puppy. If you don't have 12 volts, get a jump. Then take it from there...

should be the battery is old, happened to me the other day, it sounded exactly like a machine gun, so just get a new battery and you should be fine

Cool thanks for all your help. I'll try that after work.

What does the water do anyway?

the water acts as an electrolyte to catalize the metal electrode. i dont think you can do that on these newer batteries. if the battery says service free you cant do that. i think.

If you can get the caps off, then you can add water (distilled) to the battery. I have added water to a lot of so-called 'maintenance-free' batteries.

But, in your case it may be too late. The battery may be too far gone, unless it is your alternator that is not keeping your battery charged.

either that or your starter could be on the way as well, but of course less costly options first.......

As others here have stated, you have enough juice for lights, but not to turn over the flywheel of the engine...

Cool, thanks folks.

Yup...jump started and it started right up.