So here's what happened:

Drove my Tahoe to the kid's preschool this morning fine. When I was leaving, I went to start it up, and the dash lights/etc came on, and when the key turned to all the way to crank, everything went black. No power to anything. Tried again and nothing happened. Got out, looked at the battery, tugged the positive and negative cables. Nothing apparent was wrong, cables were connected to the terminals solidly. Got back in and tried again (noticed the dome light was working, it was black when I got out). Same deal with the lights and then black.

Looked at the battery again. Got back in again and turned the key a bit more slowly and it cranked right up. Drove to work and everything was fine, except my radio lost the presets like the battery had been disconnected.

So Imma go to Advance and get them to check the battery out, but is there anything else I need to check out like a bad cable or something? Or just head to Advance and see what they say?

7/29/2011 12:35:46 PM

Many/most employees at advance dont know shit about cars.

I wonder if it's your ignition switch.

7/30/2011 3:34:47 PM

ignition switch shouldn't have reset the ecu and radio like that. you might check the water level in your battery as well

7/30/2011 5:02:51 PM

Sounds like a loose connection somewhere. When a battery goes bad, it doesn't completely die (not enough power to even run the dome light) and then have enough power to turn the engine over the next minute. Check your ground.

7/30/2011 5:29:04 PM

I just went through this same scenario with my Jeep. 2 mornings in a row the battery was dead and had to use the booster box to get it cranked. On day 2 I verified that there wasn't a current draw on the battery. Morning of day 3 the Jeep started just fine like there was never an issue. Day 4 morning it was back to a no start scenario. On day 4 I took it by Advance and Walmart (I have Walmart's Everstart battery). Both checked the battery with their tester and it showed good. Morning of day 5 Jeep started up fine. Decided to go by Auto Zone to have them check it. It checked out fine. Later that day I go by Walmart again to have them test it again and it again showed fine. I asked the guy if he had any jumper cables I could borrow. When he handed me a set he asked what vehicle I was going to use to jump it off. I told him that wasn't the plan and to stay here for a minute with the tester. I hooked up a positive lead of the cables to the positive post on the battery. I, then, touched the negative on the battery 3 times with the opposite positive end of the cables (yes, sparks will fly.). After doing so I told the guy to test the battery again. This time it finally showed up "replace".

For some reason a battery can have a bad cell and not always be detected until some current is flowed through the battery. The guy at Walmart pulled and replaced the battery. Unfortunately it was 5 months out of the "2 year free replacement" warranty. He did prorate it so it ended up costing me $22 for a new battery installed. Just something to keep in mind if they test it and it shows up good.

I do agree with checking the ground on the engine block. I've had that problem on the Jeep as well about a year ago. However, the Jeep would still start albeit sluggishly but smoke would pour from the engine bay while trying to start it since there wasn't a good ground.

[Edited on July 30, 2011 at 9:23 PM. Reason : -]

7/30/2011 9:20:01 PM

With the recent heatwave, its the battery

8/1/2011 10:19:49 AM

I took it to advance and the employee said 'it sounds like you battery'....

, the computer said the voltage was low but otherwise it was OK. Went home and pulled the battery out and cleaned everything really good, so far it's been fine. I'll check the ground tonight.

8/1/2011 1:14:41 PM