Thread: What's wrong with my car? (video)

Hey gang. All year long, my car has been a little slow to start up, maybe taking a second or two to turn over - I didn't fret about it because it wasn't really an inconvenience. Now that it's nice and cold outside in the mornings, my car is acting really weird when I try to start it:

YouTube - NX2000 Starting Failure.

It's getting worse as it gets colder. As you can see in the video, it starts out slow then gets faster until it finally starts up - all the while I have my key held in the "START" position. I have an optima red-top battery that's under 2 years old so I don't see how that could possibly be the problem. My father thinks my alternator may be getting ready to **** the bed. Also, at stoplights my car's instrument cluster lights flicker and I can see my headlights flickering in the reflection of the persons car in front of me. Also, my fans are not blowing as hard at idle. If I apply even a little bit of throttle (say to 1200rpm), the fans speed up and my dash lights stop flickering.

Alternator? Can I take it somewhere to get it tested?

I would agree with the alt.

It could simply be a bad wire connecting the battery to the alternator or alternator to ground or starter to battery and so on. I have twice simply replaced all my main power wires. I go battery to starter to alternator with 1/0 wire and then ground the battery and alternator. I ground battery with 1/0 to chassis and ground alternator with 4 or 8 gauge to the chassis. I then ground the block in multiple places with 4 gauge wire (grounding kits work) This has solved SOOOO many idle and start issues.

Brent

seems to me like the flickering lights and the starting trouble are 2 seperate issues. Is there any chance you can snag a video of the car starting up from under the hood? I've got a feeling there's more than just an alternator issue here.

A bad ground would cause all of the issues. Also like suggested a bad connection somewhere on the positive would also cause problems. I would check those first before pulling the alt to get it tested.

check your grounds,
Charge battery
check the battery voltage

Have you done a compression check?

SOLVED

The problem was the battery. 2yr old Optima Red Top had a bad cell. Got swapped out for a new one at advance auto parts, thank god. She fires right up now.