No power at ignition

[GlanzaAtHeart]

Hi all,

Interesting electrical gremlin time.

Yesterday after driving home (approx. 20 mins of driving), no issues while driving, parked, and took key out of ignition. Went to start the car about 30 seconds after taking key out, and I hear a click and all of a sudden have 0 power.

No lights on the dash, headlights not working, absolutely nothing. Pop ups wouldn't even go down.

Fuses were absolutely fine, turns out car needed a jump start, and it was good to go.

Any idea what this would be caused by? Negative terminal is tight (just been replaced actually), and there were no alternator lights while driving.

Perhaps a bad battery? Battery is relatively new ~ 1 year, and a big 680CCA battery.

Any help would be appreciated. Cheers

[GlanzaAtHeart]

Went to start the car in the morning, started fine. 14.6V at start, idling warm at 14.2V.

Attempted to start this evening, key at ignition was fine, had power, but as soon as I tried to crank, I hear a click, and complete loss of power.

Must be a toasted battery is my only guess at this stage. I'll get it tested soon.

[Benckj]

My guess would be bad ground wire. I’d check main ground cable that goes from chassis to top of trans. Could be high resistance due to corrosion on bolt threads t to hat sometimes makes contact and other times not.

[GlanzaAtHeart]

So yeah turns out it was my battery.

Put the meter on and it was 2.8V. Not a typo. 10V short of a functioning battery haha.

The battery is about ~ 1 year old, so I'll try warranty it in level 3. 680 CCA so it's quite large.

Bit of a pain tbh but it is what it is. Annoying when good parts die.

[Benckj]

Good you found problem, all the same. I’ve run the Exide premium batteries with 740cca. Come with a 3 ur warranty which I’ve used before. No hassle as they simply check with a ahr meter and if it falls below 75% rated capacity they hand me a new one.

[GDII]

My guess would be bad ground wire. I’d check main ground cable that goes from chassis to top of trans. Could be high resistance due to corrosion on bolt threads t to hat sometimes makes contact and other times not.

Not every fault is bad grounds. Especially this sort of behaviour. I've seen other interesting things happen when that strap wasn't installed. Like a melted handbrake cable. The power will find a way to return to the battery. Clearly this case is a bad battery.