Car Repair: Trouble Shoot Your Dead Car

Most people rely heavily on their cars to be dependable enough to get them from point A to point B without fail and when your car won’t start it can wreck havoc on your ability to get to work, school or appointments in a timely manner. Before you call triple A or a tow truck there are a few car repair trouble shooting tips that you can easily go check out yourself even if you’re not mechanically inclined.

The first and most common reason your car won’t start is a dead battery. If you have an older battery this can be especially problematic in cold weather or if you leave your lights or radio on with the engine turned off, draining the battery. Ideally you have a battery tester handy to see if your battery is dead or not but if not you can always get a jump-start and see if that kicks it in gear. If it doesn’t there are still a few reasons it can be battery connected. Check your battery connections. If there is corrosion it can interfere with your batteries ability to get power.

You can clean corrosion off your connections with baking soda and water if you have them handy or you can pour a little bit of cola on the corrosion and watch the acid in the drink eat it off. Makes you wonder what the cola is doing to your teeth doesn’t it. If your connection was loose or you had corrosion and you cleaned it up, you can try to jump-start your battery again and see if it goes.

Another possibility may be your alternator has gone bad. This means your car battery will take a charge and instantly lose the charge as soon as the cables are removed or shortly after. Your alternator will not give you any warnings that it is going to go out, it will just go out and keep your battery from giving your car the power it needs to run. If you have the skill to replace the alternator yourself you can usually do it within a few hours or you can have a mechanic do it for you.

Unfortunately there are a lot of reasons your car may fail to start if it’s not the most basic like a dead battery, bad connections, or an alternator. You can check a few of the easier car repairs like a blown starter fuse that you can replace yourself on the cheap but beyond this, you are probably going to have to have a skilled mechanic give your car the once over.