Battery or starter?

[loudsubz]

Wife's 07 vibe wouldnt start this morning. Turn key and chatter from under the hood (click click click really fast) I know there is a starter issue that just goes all of a sudden but would the starter even click?

Just for giggles I charged the battery a bit (was floating around 12.5) and after 20 mins I got the engine to turn over very slow then click click click right after.

About 3 weeks ago the car was boosted with the jumper cables reversed and I had to replace a bunch of fuses but right after it started no problem. I assume the battery was damaged by the reverse jump so that's why I suspect battery too.

When I cranked and had my meter on it the battery was dropping to 10 volts

[ehoff121]

1 vote for battery...

...assuming the reason for the jump in the first place was a completely discharged battery. When that happens, it shortens the life of the battery. If it is nearing the end of its service life, it's going to need a jump more often.

How old is the battery and how many months service is it rated for? You might be able to get a pro rated (or free!) warranty replacement.

[loudsubz]

Thanks for the reply. It's a Costco branded battery. I think it's about 5 years old at this point. I should check the date code and see if it's still under some sort of warrant

[jolt]

Most batteries are 36 month warranties. I do not know of any that go past 72 months. You are lucky that the battery do not blow up on you with the cables reversed. I take it that you only have a volt meter. Charge the battery with a battery charger, say 10 amps for 3 hours. Check voltage with volt meter, it should be up around 13 volts. Then turn on the head lights and read the voltage. The head lights will pull the surface charge off the battery but it should still be above 11 volts. With the head lights on shining on a wall so that you can see how bright the head lights are, try starting the car. If the head light go dim there is a good chance that the battery is bad because it can not handle the load. If you can get someone to crank the engine while you watch the voltage, the voltage should not drop below 10 volts if the battery is good. If the car starts, you will see the voltage jump up to around 13 - 15 volts as the alternator tries to charge the battery back up. What you really want to look at is amps but volts will give you an indication of what is going on.

Having the cables reversed, you could have damaged the alternator too. That will also make the battery go dead. The above testing is not full proof but will give you a good idea if the battery is good or not. Pull the battery and take it to a parts store and have them load test it too, but remember that they want to sell you a battery so most of them test bad at the parts store. If the battery tester is not a load tester, it is not a real good test.

[loudsubz]

After the reverse boost happened I bought one of those plug in volt meters for the cigarette lighter to monitor the alternator. When the car was running it was always around 13.9 to 14.1, I know it wasnt a fool proof test but about as good as it would get using what I had.

[Zimm]

test to see if you have a bad main ground cable from the negative terminal to the frame. mine went bad and had similar symptoms, which is why i'm sharing. to test for this, put a jumper cable on the negative terminal of the battery. now hook the other end of that cable to the engine block. if it now starts, you have a bad main ground cable.

[MacGyver]

Take the battery to an auto parts store and they can test it for you. Testing with a multi-meter is not enough.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yC409CU7mU8

[Derf]

I vote bad ground between battery and engine. The starter and solenoid are grounded directly to the engine block, any issue with the ground strap/fasteners can cause the symptoms you described. Blowing fuses a few weeks ago, large current could have arced causing damage to the grounding system which is just now showing up. Jumper cables between battery ground and clean engine block is a cheap easy test. Plus with the issues from few weeks ago and being 5 years old, replace the battery for good measure.

[loudsubz]

Ok my mistake. I looked at the battery now and it looks like it is still oem lol. I remember about 5 years ago we were looking at swapping the battery but I guess we never got around to it. There are no markings on it stating Kirkland it is all black and mentions manufactured for Toyota on a small label. The date code also starts with 7c which I assume means 2007 and march.

If that's the case that's amazing we got 10 years out of this