I turn the key to start the car. The starter nudges once then power everywhere shuts off. I return the key all the way off and power won't return. Dome light won't come on. Nothing comes on. On top of that, the key is harder to turn. It seems sluggish. Any ideas?

 

something shorted out???

 

dead battery

 

Dead battery (like Icemark said) or there could be a bad connection due to corroded terminals. Try cleaning the terminals really well and tightening them on.

 

A bad battery cable connection will get warm as you try to crank the engine.
It's a handy was to find bad connections.

 

I just had the battery tested before trying this. It was labeled good but with a weak charge. It has a weak charge because they had to terminate the charging process due to too much fluid in the battery.

I also just replaced the terminals for something beefier. They were tightened pretty good.

Any other thoughts? Does nobody want to mention a bad ignition switch or column lock cylinder?

slpin - like what?

 

do the head lights work?? if the do, does the horn work at the same time as the headlights are on???

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.If the answer is no then you have a dead battery (which is what a low charge would be).

 

Ok. Can't even do one at a time. Something is cutting the power off to everything.

I checked voltage at battery and I am getting 12.3V. I checked power on the terminals and I am getting 11.7V. I checked the power on the gold ring connectors on the wires and I am getting 0V. Then I checked power at the remote terminals in the engine bay and I am getting 1.6V. Then I checked the 125amp fuse near the positive battery post and it is still good. This is a day later with the battery connected until I disconnected it tonight. So there wasn't any drain over 24 hours. I tried starting it again and got absolutely no response.

 

use a different battery ..that will solve battery...if not look to starter you gettin power there?..check starter..bad leads? try runnin a booster cable directly to the starter terminal ..that will eliminate bad positive lead from battery to starter.. just a beginning.. rule out some of the obvious ..hope you can see what i'm tryin to go for here..

 

well that rules out the ignition switch being bad

 

LOL same **** happend to me at work (funny how many ppls problems happen to me as well) well i stuck the keys in and the beepin sound went on like normal then when i was about to start the car bam! all power was loss i unplugged the main fuses and then wiggled the battery wires i went back into the car and it did the EXACT same thing: beeping and then when i go to crank it all power gets lost so i narrowed it down to the 2 things that i had played with i noticed the first tyme that my ground wire to the battery was way too loose i asked a co-employee for some pliers then i went back into the car, it beeped then i went to crank it and voooooooom it worked. funny thing is that my co employee doesnt apriciate cars for there vaule and he told me that i should sell the car cuz its acting up and i told him hes a dumb as cuz the damn wire was just loose and nothin else hope this helps

 

This exact thing happened to me a couple of months ago. I thought it was the battery terminals so I changed them. I thought is was the starter (had lots of grease and rust on it) so I changed it. All in all, it turned out the battery was the freakin' problem. The battery would start up other cars except my 7, but when I put in a new one (with more cold cranking amps), BINGO! Problem solved!

 

I still don't know why it would be the battery. I have had a bad battery before, even a good one with a low charge. The dome and door lights would still come on, and the power for the car would still turn on regardless of how terrible the cranking would be.

In my case, nothing at all is happening when I expect at least the lights to come on heavily dimmed, which has been the case before.

I guess I will try a different battery and look at the ground cables again.

Did I mention the battery reads at 12.3V and the remote terminals in the engine bay read 1.6V?

There are 6 connections to be concerned about with my battery relocation:
-battery posts (2)
-fuse (2)
-ground in bin (1)
-postive wire to remote jumper terminals in engine bay (1)

All of them are good and tight as of last night when I checked.

 

Remote terminals??? what is this some battery re-location thing???

 

Yes. But I checked the fuse and the connections everywhere.