Quote:
Originally Posted by deuces wild
What's really confusing is when you put the charger on the turbo start batteries they look to charge normal but when you try to start the car their dead.
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Voltage and amperage are two different types of values. think of it as voltage is the pressure of water in a pipe (PSI) and amperage is a measure of the pipe's flow capability. (volume) The static unloaded battery voltage may test fine (don't forget that a fully charged 12 volt battery for example should read 13 and change volts) but a bad battery will have no reserve current power and fail a load test. A quick and dirty test is to check the battery voltage before and during cranking. If the cranking voltage drops more than static battery voltage by more than 3 or 4 volts or after a 3 - 5 second crank has low or insufficient amperage reserve. Now a bad starter, bad cable connection or bad battery can cause the same result but the earlier posted tests will positively isolate the problem. BTW, be sure to check your battery charger for adequate output and proper cutoff level before you start a series of other tests! Frankly your scenario as posted sure points towards a bad charger or 2 bad batteries but testing will eliminate any guesswork. What is the voltage reading on a static battery?
I am not advocating a NASA type approach out of the gate but I have seen competitive race cars be dogged for a half a season chasing an electrical gremlin (intermittent are the worst!!) that should have been found much earlier by using standard test procedures. Just start with the simple stuff first then move on to the complicated areas until you find your problem.