Hey, I will be buying a Multimeter from wal mart probably, (cheap fast, don't have to wait for shipping)

This will still work even though my battery is dead right? Or should I try it with a fresh new battery? Or doesn't matter, battery has little bit of juice left, but not enough to crank over


Also, my mom keeps telling me to jump start it.. she doesn't realize.... it will die tomorrow morning unless I kept the car running for hours to charge the whole thing back up which would waste tons of $$ of gas..? lol

But whatever

 

I'd jump it and drive it for a bit (so you don't destroy your battery anyways by letting it drain too far), and then start testing. You don't have a trickle charger to hook up to it?

 

Nope.

All I got is some jumper cables and my grandma's 2001 saturn


So it looks like I should just get the battery recharged before I try testing? Will do.

 

ok, you're @ a college...know anyone in the engineering dept? any electrical engineering majors for instance?? they should have access to all sorts of fun test equipment...
just a thought...

years back, we had a car do something similar(93 chev.Corsica), turned out to be something in the trunk was holding the switch up @ just enough of an angle to keep the light on all the time.
not sure if these cars use a angle type switch or not (i was thinking an old Mercury switch but i doubt those would still be in use).

just another thought...

 

Save your money, jump it, go to the auto parts store and have them test it for free. They will be able to tell you if your battery is bad, your alternator isn't pushing enough or if it is something else.

 

I don't believe it's the alternator because the car worked fine for around 6 months if I drove it everyday, and we already replaced battery 6months ago before that 6months, so it's been almost a year! But once I leave it for 2-3 weeks w/o driving, the battery dies, isn't safe to conclude that it's a drainage?

So, I should jump it and charge it for a awhile before testing with the test light correct?