The Nissan Path

pathy is randomly not starting. brand new optima red top battery. alternator tested good when I tested it last weekend. it's happened twice now. last Saturday I drove it all day long, got home, and went to go out 2 hours later and it was stone dead. jumped it and it was fine all week long. this morning when I went to leave for work, it was dead again. I drove it Saturday, but not sunday. wtf? possible short somewhere? how does one diagnose something like this?

I'd have the battery checked. I know Optima batteries used to be great batteries, but recently they have not been as dependable as they used to be.

1) corroded or loose battery cable clamp (sometimes though the clamp bolts are tight, the clamp around the battery post may still be loose - especially on the negative cable)
2) defective Optima (wouldn't surprise me )

i used to have this issue on my wd21 pathy. it was due to the fuse at the battery being loose and losing connection.

thanks for the replies guys. I know that the terminals are a little loose on the posts. not popping off loose, but definitely not super tight. the optima posts are thinner than the posts of the battery I replaced. maybe i'll change those out this afternoon. i'll have the battery checked today too. i'll check the fuse and connection too. thanks again

not on the rug wrote:thanks for the replies guys. I know that the terminals are a little loose on the posts. not popping off loose, but definitely not super tight. the optima posts are thinner than the posts of the battery I replaced. maybe i'll change those out this afternoon. i'll have the battery checked today too. i'll check the fuse and connection too. thanks again

if the clamps are loose at all, the connection is not tight enough.
I got a generic (-) cable clamp for a couple of bucks at Napa that works fine.
never had that problem with the (+) clamp.
properly charge & load test the battery.

i'm going to hit the auto parts store on my way over to my buddy's place (he's a mechanic) and we'll take a look at it this afternoon. hopefully that is the issue

the positive terminal looked great and was super tight. the negative one was definitely stretched out and we replaced that one. load tested and everything looked good. hopefully we fixed the problem

Take the positive clamp off the battery and check to make sure it has not corroded away. I had to replace my positive lead a year or so ago due to the same issues that you just described.

cgray wrote:Take the positive clamp off the battery and check to make sure it has not corroded away. I had to replace my positive lead a year or so ago due to the same issues that you just described.

yeah, we pulled it off, made sure it was clean (it was) and put it back on. the negative one was clean too, just stretched out, so we replaced it. hopefully that is the fix