Hello All,

My car was working fine yesterday but this morning I tried to start it. I put the FOB in the slot and everything worked as normal. Pressed the brake and pressed the start button. Engine tried to start but was unable to do so. I assumed that I had put the FOB in incorrectly and took it out and tried it again. Samething happened. Tried to move the shifter from P to D and back again to see if it hadn't been sitting correctly. Still nothing. Now the brake has become very tight and won't depress all the way. The brake lights still light up and the engine makes the same noise. Dealership thinks it might be the battery but I don't have the time or funds to take it in to get a diagnostic. Looking for alternatives and see if anyone had a similar problem. Thank you so much for your help ahead of time!

 

Sounds kind of like the temp sensor. Did the temperature drop recently?

 

Same thing happened to me, twice. The first time it was the temperature sensor. This time, the car didn't store any codes, and after towing it to the dealer it was determined to be the battery. That surprised me because it seemed to have enough power to crank the car many times and didn't sound like it was slowing. The car just wouldn't start (or if it did, it would quickly shudder and die). All fixed (for) now.

 

try jumping it, see if you can find a friend with the same size battery to swap out. See if anyone local to you has a code reader? those are pretty much the only free things you can do without taking it somewhere. Best of luck.

 

I've had this same problem and have read about others on here having the same issue. This was the remedy more often than not:

1) Remove postive and negative.
2) Clean the terminals (of the corrosion and what not)
3) Re-connect positive and negative.

Apparently the battery mini uses is infamous for this malfunction. Don't quote me on that, I read that somewhere here.

 

Is it the original battery? If so, it needs to be replaced..

 

Wow. That would explain the battery seemingly being fine but the car just not starting … I searched all over for any solutions. Wish I'd found this tip before I paid for a new dealership battery (NOT cheap).

 

ouch...sorry...but not you fault I don't think. It's an issue that's seemingly so easily diagnosable [Car won't start = must be the battery] that I wouldn't think to come searching a forum for an answer.

I stumbled across this solution completely by accident. A new battery was too expensive for me so I was making do. Previously I'd been dealing with this battery issue for almost 2 months and every single time, I'd have someone around to give me a jump. One time I was stranded with no phone and got tired of waiting for a car to happen to pass by. For ***** and grins I poked at the battery terminals and when I pushed on the positive lead...I heard everything turn on. I was like, no. effing. way.

So come to find out, after reading about it more on here, that these terminals have to have really, really good connections, can't be off whatsoever.