Car wont start without jumping it... battery is the factory to the best of my knowledge and is a no maintenence...shows the battery is good... not low on water or dead... has the cool blue glowing ring in it... but car wont turn over without jumping it... could this be a dead cell in the battery? if so why is the battery showing good? anybody have problems with the starter going bad? i let the battery go low while listening to my radio but it didnt go all the way dead... but the starter has made a dragging sound once or twice like the brushes in it were possibly going bad... im lost and dont have the extra money to just go throwing unneccessary parts on it.... any ideas guys? i need help with this...

 

Autozone can/will check everything out for you. I don't think that there is a charge for that service. I'm sure that they would expect you to buy something from them after they told you what is wrong with the car, though. Does the horn work with the headlights on? Is this an intermittant problem? It could be something as simple as dirty battery posts and terminals.

BTW, you can remove the plastic tape on top of the battery and you will find that the battery isn't as a no maintenance battery after all. There are removable covers to allow topping off the battery cells. You might want to look into this and also check to see if the terminals are tight on the posts. BE CAREFUL. Don't touch anything with the wrench if it is touching a battery terminal/post. You can arc weld most anything with the amperage available at the battery terminals. If you aren't comfortable with this, don't touch anything and take it to Autozone. If you get near the battery, realize that it is sulphuric acid that is in the battery and that is VERY dangerous. It will eat through your clothes, burn your skin, etc. I don't mean to scare you, but batteries are dangerous, if you don't know anything about them. Do not smoke or have any open flames around a battery. If it's charging, it's producing hydrogen gas which is very explosive.

I would say take it to Autozone or some place similar.

Good luck,
Bob

 

Check to make sure your battery is connected.

 

Darn it, I wish I could find this info, but I thought the blue ring means that the battery is low on water. Red is dead charge, and green means everything is okay? (I no longer have my factory battery, so I can't check the label.)

 

I see you have an '00. Factory batteries are generally good for about 3 years. Is your car approaching 3 years old? If so, you may not have as many cranking amps as you might need to start the car.
Another thing to consider are the connections. You might need to clean these and re-install so the electricity can flow unimpeded from the battery terminals to the cable clamps. If you are cash strapped, go with the cleaning first. If you can have Autozone check it like boiler says, great. If not check it with a voltmeter if you have one. See what the resting voltage is and then see what the voltage is immediately after startup. This will tell you the health of the battery and the health of the charging system.
12.5 - 13 V resting is good (battery).
14.5 - 15 V immediately after starting is good (charging system).
13.9 - 14.2 V while driving steady state is good (charging system and voltage reg).

 

My cousins civic wouldn't start a couple days ago. I'm not sure if the s2000 works the same way but you could tri this. We push started it and moments later its on. It starts normal for the first two starts until you turn it off and let it sleep for awhile. It turned out to be a bad starter, so it was replaced. All better now.

 

i have checked the terminals and they are clean and tight ..,. im pretty anal about keeping things clean and corrosion on the battery wouldnt be tolerated... its fine once it gets started but this could be that it is running on the alternator.... on the honda batteries blue is good... green is good on gm batteries... it almost has the balls to start but not quite... i guess ill just take it in and have it tested... a mechanic friend told me that the light that shows the battery to be good or bad runs only off of one cell.... so a bad cell could be the problem... but for some reason im leaning towards a starter.... guess ill have to have it checked out tho to see... thanks guys

 

Just because the battery terminals are free of corrosion doesn't mean that they are "clean". Over time, the surfaces between the posts and the clamps get oxidized, even if they are tight. You need to take them off and clean both the posts and the clamps with a wire brush or something equivalent. You can buy wire brush cleaners for batteries just about anywhere.

Note: You may want to run a jumper between the post and the terminal, or hook it up to a battery charger while cleaning to prevent from having to reset your radio.