Difficulty with starting

[slocus]

Hey, fellas. Brand new on the forum. This is my first post on here. Looking for some expert opinions. Ran into some difficulties the other day, wanted some input on things to check out when I get home.

First off, about the car, it's my fiancee's 2002 Altima with the 3.5 V6 and automatic transmission. The car has 120,000 miles on it. It does need some maintenance, and that is what I have been working on, and that's when I ran into this problem.

I pulled the airbox apart and cleaned out the filter, vacuumed out the lower box to get all of the dirt and bugs out, sprayed some MAF sensor cleaner in the MAF, and checked all of the fluid levels.

The difficulties came later, when I went to start the car the next day, it was hard to turn over, almost like a weak battery. Odd, the car hasn't displayed any other signs of a weak battery, charging system, or any other electrical gremlins since I have been around the car. I plan on swapping the battery with the battery in my other car, just to see if that changes anything. Is there anything else that anyone can think of that I might need to look at?

[telcoman]

Hey, fellas. Brand new on the forum. This is my first post on here. Looking for some expert opinions. Ran into some difficulties the other day, wanted some input on things to check out when I get home.

First off, about the car, it's my fiancee's 2002 Altima with the 3.5 V6 and automatic transmission. The car has 120,000 miles on it. It does need some maintenance, and that is what I have been working on, and that's when I ran into this problem.

I pulled the airbox apart and cleaned out the filter, vacuumed out the lower box to get all of the dirt and bugs out, sprayed some MAF sensor cleaner in the MAF, and checked all of the fluid levels.

The difficulties came later, when I went to start the car the next day, it was hard to turn over, almost like a weak battery. Odd, the car hasn't displayed any other signs of a weak battery, charging system, or any other electrical gremlins since I have been around the car. I plan on swapping the battery with the battery in my other car, just to see if that changes anything. Is there anything else that anyone can think of that I might need to look at?

You can pick up a battery hydrometer at any auto parts store to check each cell if the battery has vent caps for around $10.00



You can also pick up a cheap volt meter at radio shack to check the alternator voltage with the engine running. Should be about 14volts. With the engine off the voltage across the battery should be 12.6v

If that is the original battery then just go get a new one

Telcoman

[wade001]

to find out if the batt is weak check the voltage while cranking the engine, a bad batt can still read 12V when it isn't under load, if its under around 9.6V replace it, and reading when running is just picking volt output of the alternator.