In Saskatchewan here it decided to drop down to about -20 today and i couldn't get my damn car to start. Not a big deal but I'm more concerned that the battery was dead. It's done this to me twice now. Something is draining it pretty good and it's not me leaving stuff on, not the alarm, faceplate for stereo not even in, good battery, good alternator. I'm stumped, anyone know if there is something common that might be doing this or anything i've left out? I can't seem to think of what might be draining it so bad.

 

When is that cold, the ammout of ampers that you can draw through the battery drops drastically. I would suggest checking the voltage ifit happens again, you could have pleny of voltage, but not enough cold cranking amps to start the car. My suggestion would be to get a gell cell battery such as an optima red top. These batteries are effected less by the cold and have more cranking amps than most off the shelf batteries. Another thing you should already have is a block warmer, if you don't have one, your oil is going to be like cold syrup and give the engine more resistance to turnin oer, requireing more power from the battery to turn over. More or less, if your battery is holding voltage but not turning the engine over in the cold, it has to few cold cranking amps. Hope this helps.

 

You can check for a parasitic loss by disconnecting battery and hooking up an ampmeter. Then lock the car like you normally would and read amperage. It should be less than .050 amps. Could take a while for it to do that, but not longer than 10 or so min.

 

Ya, i've got to hook up the meter to check this out, i just got it started this morning here again, ran for about 15 minutes and then i turned it off. I tried starting it again in like 45 minutes and it was completely outta juice. I have a brand new optima so i know it's not the battery acting up, i must have some weird short or something draining the hell out of it. Thank *** I'm parking it on the weekend and getting out the winter beater...