Hey all,

The other morning when starting my car, it seemed to crank a lot slower than normal. This happened a couple of times until that arvo when starting my car again it cranked so slow that the car would not start.

I thought a flat battery at first - but I had not left any electrics on, and the battery is reasonably new. Also called roadside assistance, they came and tested the battery - it was fully charged.

Roadside thought they would jump-start the car anyway (in case the battery had another fault or something). They connected their jump-start leads to my battery terminals - but the car would still not crank over. So they connected the negative jump-start lead to my car chassis - and the car started fine. Cranked over nice and quick.

They said the negative/earth cable going from my battery terminal to the car chassis must be dodgy. A bad wire or connection. This would make sense - but I checked the connections and they seem good, so I guess the actual wire must have a short or something wierd in it. I will have the earth cable replaced with a newer/thicker guage cable.

Anyway - question... would that definitely be the problem? Could there be something else in the car that could cause earthing problems like this? I have the car for sale at the moment - so I want to make sure replacing the earth cable will fix this problem (so that if someone buys the car they won't get this problem) :)

Cheers,
Kim

get a new earth lead its not that hard to change out im sure it wouldnt cost that much if they earthed it elsewhere and the car started thats what i would be changing

if they connected it to the chassis and everything was fine then it would be the cable from the battery which goes to the chassis and then to the gearbox (same cable) so i would think thats where the problem is.

might be a good time to upgrade/install an earth kit

when i did my earth kit(from scratch) used a block of aluminium with 2ga from the batt to block and 4x4ga from the block to engine/chassis, all up cost me ~$50 for everything

wouldn't be a bad thing to do anyways

The cable may not be faulty.

Poor connections between the cable and the chassis and engine would do this.

Copper cables are unlikely to fail unless damaged or the lugs on either end are coming off.

Rob

Had the connections cleaned up, and a second earth lead onto the engine block fitted... no problems so far :)

When cleaning connections, people forget to unscrew the actual terminals that go on to the batter and clean the wire contacts of those. In most cases, people just clean the contact points between the terminals and the batteries. Like I said in another post recently, if you take the terminals off from the leads (do it one at a time so you don't get the terminals mixed up!!!!), and dip the end of the wire in some vinegal or chemical corrosion removal stuff for say half an hour, rinse well, and do the same to the terminal. Often the join between the lead and the terminal, although looking fine from the outside, is heavily corroded or dirty on the inside (that is, the connection between the wire and the terminal) :)!

It was most likely your earth battery terminal. Extra earths can't really be a bad thing. Don't go crazy though or you risk earth loops.

The cables comming from the battery and earth are only that size for when the car is cranking, so if okay you dont need bigger ones for when the motor is running as they are already 10 fold what they need to be for operational current.