Left my cali for a couple months with no trickle charge (i know ..) engine will not turn over. I hooked up jumper cables from my other car but cali still does not turn over .. lights are on, things seem to be functioning ok. nothing in manual .. what am i missing?? help!
With most modern cars, the battery needs to have some juice before ECU allows engine to start. So keep the boosting car running for a few minutes (try 5 minutes first) before attempting to start yours. And NEVER connect the negative cable of the weak battery to the negative battery post. The California has a negative post right between the intake rubber ducts, in case you didn't know. Hook cables in this order: - Positive terminal of weak battery - Positive terminal of good battery - Negative terminal of good battery - Solid ground (NOT the negative terminal) of weak vehicle. And yes, it'd be much better to fully charge your battery first, but most trickle chargers won't start charging if they don't detect enough voltage, so you need to charge it with the boosting car first, as hotbmw3 said. But it should take 10 minutes at the most to start (with booster engine running), not an hour. When it starts, drive it for a few miles, and then hook it up to the charger. Good luck.
