The battery terminals also look decent. Thought they were worse.

 

I notice that you have a second set of cables attached to the battery, maybe your aftermarket stereo is draining your battery? A multimeter will certainly help you with the diagnosis.

 

or i would disconnect them.

 

Bought multimeter, the battery was UNBELIEVABLY dead. Came back .37. Took it to an auto store and it got the same reading .37

replaced the battery, now electrical stuff works.... headlights, dash cluster, stereo

BUT the car didn’t start. This time you here the car wanting to start but it doesn’t.

 

How old was that dead battery? I can't see the month/year stamp in your photo. It looks relatively new. If that is the case, you have a HUGE parasitic draw somewhere in the electrical system. My first bet would be any added aftermarket devices.

 

Place that meter on the amperage setting (many of them require moving one lead to a different connection on the meter. It will be labeled) and start on the max amperage setting. Disconnect the positive cable from the battery. Figure out a way to connect your positive meter lead to the positive terminal of the battery. Connect the negative lead of the meter to the positive cable that you have disconnected. Keep the key off in the car. You will see some amount of current draw from the battery. You may need to reduce the scale setting on your meter to get a reasonable reading. 1A setting should be sufficient. When you first connect the cable to the meter again, you will likely see a higher reading as the ECU is booting up. Then it will stabilize. Watch over a few minutes and see what the meter is reading (or take a picture of the screen and post it).

This will help determine if there is a parasitic draw. It that reading looks high to us, then the next step is to start disconnecting things, starting with whatever is connected to those extra wires, and see if it drops.

As a note, do not connect the meter to a power source like battery positive with the other lead grounded to ground directly with it in Current/amperage mode. It will be a dead short. Always measure amperage with the meter in series with the rest of the circuit. When measuring amperage in line with the battery cable, you have the loads of the circuits in line to protect from this. But when measuring voltage from batt to ground you would be creating a short with it on the amperage settings.

With the other battery depleted like that and you saying that the new battery already does not start the car, I have a feeling you have a near short somewhere. So do start with the amperage setting on its highest value. 10A if it has that.

 

Electrical isn't all that hard. Doing this current draw at test test tbat enginifeer is suggesting is not intimidating if you just follow his steps.

Lets bullet them to make it easier:

Meter on dc current (amps) setting (use highest setting)

Meter leads in correct position for testing current (amps)

Remove red battery cable (and that extra stereo cable along with it)

Place meter inline, between battery and the cable you just removed - red on battery, black on cable

Read meter value - This is your at rest current draw

At rest current draw should be pretty low. The thought is something with your car is using A LOT of power all the time (probably something with the stereo).

The theory is this is not only draining your battery, but also drawing so much you have trouble starting the car.

Take a photo of the meter reading, so we can see the value, and also how you have it hooked up and the settings you used, etc.