Went to start my car (99 z28) after leaving work...turned the key to the on position, everything seemed fine, all gauges worked and lights come on. Went to turn the car over and there was one click and everything went black. Turned the key on/off numerous times and there was nothing. I figured it had to be electronic so i started pulling on the battery terminals thinking maybe something was loose. Get back in and the same thing happened. All lights turn on but when I try to turn the car over, everything goes black. I took the battery terminals off and they were all corroded so I scraped some off and reattached them and it started. Now it idles like sh*t but seems to run fine when I open the throttle a bit. Could the battery terminals be the issue? I couldn't really do much with them tonight but will look at them tomorrow. It was pouring all day while I was at work too.

 

yeah. your not getting the voltage to the car. ether the battery terminals, or cables if it happens again start testing for voltage. but if you have time clean the terminals good and do a coninuty check on the power wires of the battery

 

x2, sounds like you need to spend some time cleaning them off. get a scotchbright pad and go to work.

 

nice. good to know that it could be as simple as that. Couldn't do too much last night at 3 am when I got out of work so I was worried. Thanks for the replies

 

Dirty cables, a old battery can cause the same problem, it could show 12v on the meter but not strong enough to hold that 12v while engaging the starter. test the battery while your cleaning cables and see how is acts.

 

I'm having the same issue except for other reasons. As I type this on my iPhone in my car I can't figure out why my car won't start. I will lead by saying... I hooked up my system over the past few days. Starting with my hea unit. I implanted the PAC-swi steering wheel interface. Connect the "switche battery cable as instructed. Doing that wrong causes ur car to be slowly drained of power while the car is off. So beyond that I ran my power cable and hooked it up to my red top optima up front. Hooked upthe amp/sub and everything worked great for the day. The next morning i double check my work by starting my car and running my system. Everythig checked out. Shut the car off. 6 hours later I'm ready to go somewhere and it turns over/idles rough for a couple secs so I give it some gas buy it slowly fades. I try jumping it for a half hour to 45 mins while I disconnect wire by wire start w the power wire to the battery for the system. and eventually disconnected everything. The battery holds a 12.5 charge and ramps to 14.4 w cables on it. What I can't figure out is why when I turn the key everything goes black. I pull the jump cables and put them back on and everythings back on. Turn the key and the same thing happens. It won't even attempt to click like a dead battery would. I can't even turn the key to start it before everything dies. So I'm at a loss for why that is. If my alternator is bad would that cause it to not even let me get to turning the key to crank it over? Right now the only thing happening is the little security light on top of the dash blinks faster than normal when I open a door. If I put the key in, nothin happens. No beeps. I never saw a"security" light pop up on the dash. ??????

 

I suspect your audio work ended up causing a short to ground.

It does not take to long to pull a battery so far down it my not recover even with a long trickle charge.

But that would be the first thing I would try. I would disconnect the power cable to the audio system from your battery. Than try and charge it slowly overnight.

Try this link:

http://www.optimabatteries.com/produ...agmbattery.php

Perry