Long story short, mother calls me and tells me her 96 Accord LX with 128k miles will not start. Out of the blue problem, so I told her to jump start it. She jumps it, and lets it sit running for a minute, then disconnects the battery jumper cables and the car sputters out. Retrys and learns that she can keep the car on as long as she gives it gas.

Turning the headlights on emits a buzz type noise according to her (all over phone), so she has kept everything in the car off.

I'm thinking alternator, but she says the little battery light isn't on, and every honda we've had that needed an alt, the light would come on solid as you drove around.

She's going to get a new battery with her friend right now, and put it in there. I'm not sure that's going to solve the issue, unless this battery has a seriously dead cell of some sort. The battery in there is almost 4 years old (November). It's a DieHard Gold.

She just phoned me again, she got the car to remain on after driving it around, but then when she restarted it, it would not start and just clicked.

The starter is relatively new (less than 30k miles). So that's out.

FredSVT, Princess, Prince??? :) :dunno:

Hello,

I would not ever rule out a bad starter by low mileage. I have seen ones that were bad right out of the box.

Anyway. I would assume that it most likely is the battery that is bad but a multimeter would be able to confirm it.

I would test your current battery and if it fails, then replace it and see if it works.

I take it the battery light comes on as a bulb check when you turn the ignition on?

I would not rule out that the alt might be bad, but start with the battery, battery cables(were they hooked up? Were they corroded?

Good luck

L

I'm going w/ a bad/problematic alternator, but then again- what do I know! :D

(I also recall Accordlover's mom may currently reside in the gulf-coast area, ie. New Orleans, LA; lots of salinity there in the air, year-round which hastens corrosion inside of alternators/etc')

Go MOM!

She sneaked one on me! Took the battery out herself, borrowed her friends car and had it tested at autozone this morning. Batt tested bad, then bought a new one, put it in and drove the car all day with no issues.

The orig denso alternator lives on. Glad it was just the battery.

Thanks for the input fella's.