Thread: Starting Problems

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As many of you may know my father passed away not to long ago and my mother is now trying to sell his truck. The truck is a Chevy Cheyene 1500 with a Vortec V6 engine. The truck is currently setting in her driveway with a For Sale Sign. My problem is that after it sets a few day's without being started the battery becomes to weak to turn the motor over. I know it's not the battery as it is brand new. I would not think it is the alternator causing the battery to drain as the truck is not being driven. He does have a CB Radio and Backup lights that he wired but I do not think they would drain the battery down? Could it be the starter? Any suggestions as to what I should be looking for?

Originally posted by JCT400SB
As many of you may know my father passed away not to long ago and my mother is now trying to sell his truck. The truck is a Chevy Cheyene 1500 with a Vortec V6 engine. The truck is currently setting in her driveway with a For Sale Sign. My problem is that after it sets a few day's without being started the battery becomes to weak to turn the motor over. I know it's not the battery as it is brand new. I would not think it is the alternator causing the battery to drain as the truck is not being driven. He does have a CB Radio and Backup lights that he wired but I do not think they would drain the battery down? Could it be the starter? Any suggestions as to what I should be looking for?

Well it sounds like the battery...... do a load test on it if you can if not you could check it by chargeing the battery to full charge then disconnect the battery for a few days If it is down when you hook it back up then it is no good if not there is a drain in the truck...... any digital equiment will put a drain on the battery 24/7 for memory so depending how long it sits between starts it will go down
good luck
MM64

Thanks for the input. The battery was the first thing I replaced so I'm sure that is not it. I'm going to run it up to the Auto Parts Store tonight and have them test the alternator but I have a feeling it may be something else?

Even new batteries can be bad. I bought an autocraft titanium, and it died a few months later. Well, actually, it tried to burn up while they were testing it! but it was fun to watch!

Well it did the same thing with the previous battery which read good when tested at the Auto Parts Store two weeks ago. My mother took it back to Wal-mart anyway and they replaced it (didnt test it first) so it has done the same thing with two different batteries one of which I just put in on Sunday. It has to be something else?

The CB raido might be drawing current.

Sounds like ya got a dead short there JCT, one way to see is to remove the pos battery cable, now get out your trusty 12volt test light, hook one end to the POS cable and the other end to the POS post, if it lights up you got a short, if so you got to start hunting, now to narrow your search down a little leave the light hooked up and lite, pull fuses out one at a time and when the light goes out you'll have narrowed down the seach to what ever is protected by that fuse, if no fuse makes it go out, all thats left is main wire to starter, starter itself (very rare) or some kind of add on device hooked right to the battery itself, hope this helps some

The lights he added, most people don't run them through the fuse box, that's probably what's going wrong, there drawing as Viking said they could.

Should have known that women don't have any idea about cars. I just got off the phone with my mother and apparently the truck will turn over but doesnt want to fire (not how she explained it to me last night). She said she had the neighbor over and he thought it was not getting fuel as in plugged fuel filter. I think I'll try a new fuel filter and some new plugs and see if that doesnt take care of the hard starts. Thanks for the help though.

Originally posted by JCT400SB
Should have known that women don't have any idea about cars. I just got off the phone with my mother and apparently the truck will turn over but doesnt want to fire (not how she explained it to me last night). She said she had the neighbor over and he thought it was not getting fuel as in plugged fuel filter. I think I'll try a new fuel filter and some new plugs and see if that doesnt take care of the hard starts. Thanks for the help though.

Might want to curb that "women sh*t" , we have some very savy ones on this forum

Sorry, no offense to the women of the board. Please except my apologies.