Jonah Hex

Hello Everyone!

Let me start by saying that I am new to this forum. I have a 2008 HHR Panel for a company vehicle. Everything was fine with it until Friday. I came out to leave work and it would not start! Figuring that I left something on, I got it jump started (using the jump points under the hood). It didn`t take much, (no charging with the alternator on the jump vehicle), just hook and start.
I drove it 75 miles home, turned it off, and restarted it with no problems.
I went out to start it today (I don`t like Monday morning surprises), and it was dead again! It is going to the dealer in the morning (under warranty), but I was curious if this was a known problem with these things.

thanks,

Jonah

txbass06

Sounds like you could have a bad battery. I would say take it to a local auto parts store(Autozone, Advance Auto Parts, NAPA etc) and have them check it. They'll do it for free. But since you're takin it back to the dealer, it would just be extra time/trouble for you

HillsdaleHHR

You should jump the battery (located in the rear of the vehicle).

Jonah Hex

Hillsdale,

I`m not sure what good jumping the battery itself will solve. I can jump it just fine from the jump points under the hood.

Jonah Hex

txbass,

I hope you are right. It does act like a bad battery in the fact that after you get it started and let it run for awhile, it will start again after shutting it off.......for a time. After that, it goes back to dead battery syndrome. I`m sure that this battery was probably made in The People`s Republic of Cheap-A$$ China, like most everything else is today.

Of course, after reading all the horror stories on this forum about the wonders of GM engineering, I REALLY DO HOPE that it is just the battery!

Jonah

HillsdaleHHR

Use the search function and type in "jump battery". You will see that there are other members that have had similar problems. It may indeed be a bad battery but if it ever needs jumped I would still jump it from the battery itself as others have noted problems jumping from the jump points under the hood.

JeffB

This issue sounds very familiar. It happened to me as well. At about 28000 mi, I went out to the garage to go somewhere & it just wouldn't start. I called the dealer, they sent a tow truck, & later that day they called & said they replaced the battery. That was about 3 months ago - not a lick of trouble since.

(knock on my head - I mean knock on wood. - well, you know - same thing)

Jonah Hex

Well, the dealership installed a new battery under warranty. Service rep said that the original battery was putting out a whopping 35 cca. We`ll see if that is all it was.....time will tell.

johnnyb26

Picked mine up brand new from dealer worked great for one day the same thing happened it was the battery , dealer installed a new one and it's been fine every since then

PatrickL

I picked up my brand new HHR Friday 7/24 (by trading my "clunker") and had the battery replaced under warranty Monday 7/27.

I think in my case the car had sat on the lot so long with so few starts that the battery sat in a drained condition for a long time. Mine is a 5 speed LS - probably not a lot of them moving since gas came down last fall.