Got up this morning, wife leaves, comes back into the house.

Dead battery

Jump start it, tell her to drive in 2nd(slushbox) to charge it back up. She stops for coffee on the way to the office

Dead battery

At lunch, go jump it again, she drives around in 2nd for about 30 minutes, and it just will not hold a charge. Runs fine, so the alternator is good, right? 5 years on a 7 year battery, which is not bad I guess. If'n this happened last week, would have the benefit of Mr Sun shining down on my red neck as I am changing it out. Freakin' Mondays piss me off.

At least it is not raining.

 

Did you notice the ad for this page? If you look at this page without logging in...

 

^ironic haha!

 

if it's not a sealed battery it might be too low on water.

 

start the car.

Disconnect positive terminal.

Car runs = bad battery

Car dies = bad alternator

It's a general rule.

 

multimeter would be an excellent investment in cases like this

 

Interesting.

 

i dont think that general rule applies to modern cars, does it?

 

it does not

 

Modern car= start car, disconnect battery and reconnect = goodbye voltage regulator or even worse ECM