12 base w 500 miles

Just left my car for about 4 hours with the lights on, and the car was dead. Blinking cabin lights and dead headlights/dash.

The weird part is its taking forever to jump start. It's been about 10 minutes, but the dash light is getting more consistent.

Is there a problem with my battery?

Thanks!

 

And for what it's worth, it was below freezing

 

hook it up to a charger. its a combination of the cold temperature and the method of charging

 

As about two hundred threads here show, the Fit battery is tiny and easily drained so you have to be really careful not to leave ANY lights on, even a dash light will kill it in a few days.

But it should jump-start instantly, assuming you're not trying to jump-start it from a flashlight battery...

 

I tried to jump start this morning to no avail. My friend's car, the Fit, and the cable wires were reading 11~12 volts on the voltmeter.

Thankfully, I was able to push start it with a friend. I drove it to the dealer, and by then, it was able to start by itself.

However, I noticed the battery indicator was red with a white circle around it. The service guy said those indicators are unreliable ...

 

Sounds like you need a new pair of jumper cables.

The Fit's battery should be ok after it charges, either by driving the car or an external battery charger.

The indicator on the battery is a reliable indication of the battery's state of charge, but not "health." It's pretty useless.

 

You should've been able to jump start it in less than a minute.

Although not recommended, I hook up jumper cables directly... + to + and - to -. Recommended is actually, the negative cable goes to the dead car's grounding chassis/frame (which, incidentally, is only a 6-10" wire connection from the battery's negative terminal).

On a side note... I once had the jumper cables reversed (+ to -), when I was jump starting my sister's van... it started smoking.

 

If your battery is dead, dead, dead, then when you try to jump start it without letting the dead battery load up, your jumping car will be trying to charge the battery, as well as, operate the starter motor on dead car. Charging the battery by itself, first, is the best solution.

 

Yeah that still has me worried. We had to fudge the + cable to the Fit's cable several times because the Fit's battery connection has practically no clipping point. And even then, only the dash light was able to come on with lots of flickering.

 

maybe you need a different set of jumper cables.

while the ones I have aren't the most secure in the world (it'll come off if you knock the cable enough)... it does have quite a bit of contact. its a cheap set I got from Walmart.