As I was driving home from work today the battery light, brake light, and anti lock brake light all came on. The car drove fine and started fine. The one odd thing was that as I was getting near home (my drive lasted about 1 hour due to traffic) the radio would cut out if I hit the brake pedal. The battery, brake, and abs lights also got increasingly dimmer as time went on. If i put the turn signals on the 3 warning lights would fluctate with the signals. All this indicated to me that something in the charging system was not working - battery made the most sense to me.
I got home and checked the battery - it is from May 05. It was a little low on water but not all that bad so I topped it off. The terminals were pretty corroded so I got out the wire brush and cleaned them off. I also checked the output with a multimeter - it was around 12.5V. After all that I tried starting the car but nothing happened - the positive terminal was a little loose (to get it tight I really had to push it to the very base of the post). After I got that tightened I started the car and ran it for a bit - the same battery, brake and abs lights were on. I then trickle charged the battery for 30 minutes (battery gave off over 13V while charging, after disconnecting the battery it gave 12.8V). The same 3 lights still came on.
Is my battery still low? I checked the battery on my other car that was sitting next to it in the garage and it was about 12.5V (although it hasn't been run in a few weeks).
Any thoughts on why I'm having this problem?
I got home and checked the battery - it is from May 05. It was a little low on water but not all that bad so I topped it off. The terminals were pretty corroded so I got out the wire brush and cleaned them off. I also checked the output with a multimeter - it was around 12.5V. After all that I tried starting the car but nothing happened - the positive terminal was a little loose (to get it tight I really had to push it to the very base of the post). After I got that tightened I started the car and ran it for a bit - the same battery, brake and abs lights were on. I then trickle charged the battery for 30 minutes (battery gave off over 13V while charging, after disconnecting the battery it gave 12.8V). The same 3 lights still came on.
Is my battery still low? I checked the battery on my other car that was sitting next to it in the garage and it was about 12.5V (although it hasn't been run in a few weeks).
Any thoughts on why I'm having this problem?
