1997 Chevy Cavalier the battery acts dead

NATEADAMS

MEMBER
1997 CHEVROLET CAVALIER
4 CYL
2WD
AUTOMATIC
116,000 MILES

I have a 97 chevy cavalier. I have changed the battery twice, had the alternator checked, and changed the battery wires/connectors but the car wont start unless jumped off by another. Once the car is turned off it wil not start unless jumped of again. The battery constantly acts dead but the car runs fine once started. What could the probem be?

1 Reply

PJ(GTO)

MEMBER
35 POSTS

Believe it or not a lot of the time it is the connectors, these newer connectors don't look corroded on the outside but the inside or at the point of the connector to the battery will have enough corrsion built up to cause this type of problem, best thing to do is take your termanals off and look at the contact surface on both the battery and the cable conncetor, if you see corrosion just use sandpaper or stainless steel to clean these off, on occasion I have seen corrsion on the bolt inside of the connector, you can sometimes take the bolt out to clean those surfaces too, if not get them wet and put some baking soda all over them turn the bolts back and forth and then pour water on them to wash the baking soda off, the baking soda will stop corrosion due to acid built up from the battery. Give that a try.
What happens is the battery works fine for low load equipment, but it does not have enough clean surface area for enough current to flow to start the car.