Stalls after start

HJEREMY09

MEMBER
2012 MAZDA 3
AUTOMATIC
158,000 MILES

Started 3 days ago all the lights came on the dashboard started with battery light. Parked it came back and car sputtered or was hard to start I shut it off tried to turn it back on and it was dead no cranking sound or anything. After about 5 to 10 minutes of waiting try it again and the car started tried to drive but lost power after about 100 yards and car stalled out. Did the same thing waited about 5 or 10 minutes and it died again after only going about 50yards. Tested the battery and it showed 12.6 when off when I would put a load on it the battery decreased drastically and so I replaced the battery and cleaned off the cables and it worked initially but now did the same thing a day later

1 Reply

KASEKENNY

MECHANIC
18,907 POSTS

Sounds like we have an issue with the charging system. If the battery was depleted to the point, it fails a load test and now it started again after a day of operating properly, then we most likely have the issue with the battery again.

So, I would suggest we start with checking the battery again and then checking the alternator and make sure it is charging. If the charging system is not working, then the battery would last about a day before these issues would start again.

Here are a couple guides that will help with this:

https://www.2carpros.com/articles/car-battery-load-test

https://www.2carpros.com/articles/how-to-check-a-car-alternator

Let's run through this and confirm the battery and alternator both check out and then we can take the next steps.

Thanks