It just doesn't stop with this car. The winter has always been this car's arch enemy. It's routinely failed to turn over, charge the battery, idle properly; it hates the cold. Well, these last two weeks have had me in a tizzy. Yes, a tizzy...over yet another no-start condition. Turn the key and nothing. Here's part of the problem.

This cable is the negative ground from the chassis to the battery. I'm pretty sure that with the amount of corrosion is cable end is showing that no electricity would be flowing through it. And sure enough that was the case. This was caused by the battery, actually:

A massive lump of battery terminal corrosion had begun to form over the negative terminal, and (on the positive terminal actually a few months ago). As a result, electricity couldn't find its way back to the battery to recharge it when the car was running. There was enough juice in the battery to start the car a few times, but afterwards, it fell below the 12.5V minimal limit to crank the engine via the starter.

I took myself, with the help of bumming rides and borrowing cars, to Advance Auto as always to get a battery terminal brush to scrape off the layer of corrosion from the terminal and the clamp, some battery terminal protectant to spray over the clean terminals to help minimize the corrosion, and felt battery washers to go around the terminals. The corrosion is actually caused by sulfuric acid escaping through minuscule cracks around the terminals. The acid vapor reacts with the lead terminals and a blue/white precipitate forms. These crystals don't conduct electricity and therefore are a bear on the recharging system in the car.

I charged the battery back up to its 12.8V capacity and thought that would be the end of it. Two days later, I attempted to start the car and get nothing. I checked the voltage across the terminals and they read 11.8V. I checked the drain on the battery (from the radio, and other minute draws) and get 65mA which is perfectly normal. There's NO way that 1V can be ticked off the battery with a 65mA draw over two days. The math doesn't add up.

After cleaning and recharging the battery, in 15 degree weather of course, I turn the key and get nothing. This isn't possible if the battery is fully charged. I took it back out of the car, charged it outside of the car on the front porch, and then took some readings. 12.8V. That's plenty enough to start the car. I put it in the car, turn the key and get half a crank and then it dies, reading 11.5V. Again, impossible. Recharged it, and took another reading. 12.8V. I put it back into the car and turned on the headlights and the blower motor and the unthinkable happens. Not only does it draw some current from the battery, but it draws ALL of the current from the battery. A normally functioning battery should run the headlights over night and possible two full days worth before the battery dies completely. It may not start the car after a few hours if you've left the headlights on, but the headlights are still usually on the next morning. But somehow, when current is being drawn from the battery, it's just not holding its charge anymore.

I charged the battery to 12.8V and took the battery to Advance Auto to have them check out the battery's overall condition. Their machine prints out "12.3V GOOD BATTERY - RECHARGE"... At this point I'm convinced that the battery is dead completely. Again, there's no way a functioning battery should lose half a volt in the 15 minutes it took to get to AA. I ask them if they could do the works on the battery, a four-hour full charge cycle. Five hours later, I come back and the battery is tested again saying "12.3V GOOD BATTERY - RECHARGE". Even they were confused.

The best explanation we have at this point is that because the battery was previously not receiving charge due to the corroded cables (due to the battery), the battery actually froze in the cold weather. I did some digging and apparently a fully charged battery will freeze at -77F, something we don't see in Pennsylvania all that often. A 50% charged battery will freeze at -10F or so...and a 0% charged battery (somewhere around 11.5V as I had) will freeze around 20F. That's above zero temperature. We think that due to the excessive cold weather we've had this winter, and the fact that the battery wasn't charge, it actually frozen, probably destroying the lead plates inside to the point where they can't properly hold charge.

PepBoys had the best deal on a new battery. The Porsche 944 uses a reversed terminal super small battery so it's a little harder to find. A purchased a 3 year warrantied BOSCH for $95. I photocopied the receipt in case something goes wrong with it as well.

In the future, if I still have the car and don't plan on driving it due to cold weather, I may actually remove the battery and take it inside so this doesn't happen again. The installation is a quick one and easy to do so it wouldn't be all that much of a burden.