MLChampion

I got another new battery for my car, (2002 ES300) and put it in but did not attach it to the car (it's sitting in my driveway unused while I try to sell it). Someone was coming to look at the car, so I attached the battery, but the car wouldn't start. Over the past year we've replaced the battery at least three times. At first the car would not start if it hadn't been driven for over two weeks. Then the time between "deaths" began to shrink. Now the brand new battery was only attached to the car for a few moments, but it wouldn't start. We jumped it, ran it for about a half hour, then shut it off. Two hours later I tried to start the car and it's dead again. I've read on this forum that it might be the alternator, however I also read that one can get into a "death spiral" of replacing the alternator and battery over and over in succession. If it's not the alternator, what could it be? Anybody who has solved this problem, I'd be grateful to hear from you! I am not excited about having to put big bucks into fixing this car that I'm trying to sell. Thank you!! (Anybody want to buy it? Low mileage 88M! Potentially bad alternator included! ;-)

PuReChaos

Do you have the battery tested before moving on to the next one? If so what are the battery tests saying? Because honestly I believe this is an alternator problem.

01LEXPL

iTrader: (10)

wow. so why would you not consider replacing the alternator after the second battery?

I hope you realize that you spent more than the equivalent of a new alternator in batteries for this thing.

MLChampion

Luckily the battery was still under warranty, so I only had to purchase one. I'm bringing it in this afternoon to get the alternator looked at. Thanks for the replies!

MLChampion

Thought I'd post how this was resolved for anyone else in this situation. We brought the car to our mechanic, and the issue was NOT the alternator. Apparently because we've got an auto starter, the draw on the battery is about twice what's normal. However a good battery should be able to meet that demand (and in fact the battery previous to the piece of crap we purchased at Pep Boys worked fine for years). Additionally the idle was too low, which meant the battery wasn't being recharged at the appropriate rate. We replaced the cheap battery with a good ACDelco, and increased the idle, and the car is running fine. So lesson learned: no cheap batteries for any of my cars going forward. You get what you pay for (and in this case, far less..... the expensive battery would have been cheaper in the long run, and prevented a lot of stress!)

PuReChaos

Interesting, I had no idea this model year even had that as an option (auto starter). Anyways glad you got it diagnosed properly.

01LEXPL

iTrader: (10)

It didnt, which is why the aftermarket starter tend to mess with electronics...

lexusdog

iTrader: (1)

Aftermarket alarms and auto starts tend to have a constant draw from the battery. I would guess it was probably not installed properly.