Help!

Tiny
XXPINKPRELUDE
  • MEMBER
  • HONDA PRELUDE
1998 Honda Prelude-- 122,000

I just bought a brand new battery about a month and a half ago. I've been having problems in the past month or so with the car acting like it doesn't want to crank. If I drive the car everyday, it cranks fine. If I leave it for a few days not driving it, the battery will be dead, or it won't crank. I'll jump start it and everything is fine. About a month ago, the rpms would drop to 0 when I pushed in the clutch to decelerate, then pop back up where they needed to be. It hasn't done this again since that one day, though. I'm absolutely lost as to what the problem is. I also feel like maybe the car isn't getting the power it should be getting; I have neon lights that beforehand always worked and I could leave them on without the battery dying, now they won't stay on, or turn off when I crank the car. Please help!
Tuesday, April 11th, 2006 AT 6:17 PM

2 Replies

Tiny
TIMINGISEVERYTHING
  • MEMBER
  • 17 POSTS
Check to make sure all of your ground wires are secure. Next check to see if the battery might just have a bad cell. This happens more often than you think for Hondas because they have such small batteries. Also, if you have replaced your stereo recently, this may effect things. The power and ground leads for the stereo do some pretty crazy stuff when they are touching things they aren't suppose to in the dash. Good Luck.
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Wednesday, April 12th, 2006 AT 5:16 PM
Tiny
BENZ_GUY
  • MEMBER
  • 28 POSTS
Double check to make sure nothing has been left on, also check the courtesy lights in the interior, glove box, trunk etc. To make sure they weren't left on accidently.

Then, if you have a test light, I'd disconnect one of the battery terminals and place the test light in series with the connection. (Ie. Tester to battery and cable to tester) The current should not be high enough to light the test light when it's connected this way. If it does light up, try disconnecting the wires going to the alternator, if it goes out you probably have a bad diode in the alternator. A bad diode can have a pretty good current draw, which can drain your battery down in a few hours.

If it didn't light up when you first hooked it up in series then you can hook up a mulitmeter inline (reading amps) in series (in place of the test light) to get an idea of how much current the system is drawing. It should be no more than around 75milliamps. If it's up over an amp or so you can start pulling fuses and relays one at a time (putting back the good ones as you go) while making note of the reading on the meter, when the meter current draw drops off, you can isolate which system the fault is in.

Hope this helps
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Thursday, April 13th, 2006 AT 12:39 AM

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