Hey guys. So yesterday i stupidly left my lights on all day after i was finished doing some work on my tail lights and my battery died. I tried to jump the car and i didnt get anything but a machine-gun like sound. It doesnt sound like the starter is grabbing anything so i'm coming to you guys for help. My friend suggested starter fluid earlier so im going to check that when i get home, but id appreciate any other insight. I have a video that i took last night which i will try to get up later if nobody has experienced a similar problem.

 

That's a pretty typical sound when you try to start a car with a dead battery. How long did you leave the jumper cables on? Was the car doing the jumping running? Sounds like it just didn't have enough juice to turn over.

 

I left the cables on for a little over 30 minutes while i was sporadically revving the engine. I thought that would be adequate time to give my car a charge

 

Definitely should have been. How old is the battery? It might just have to be replaced. Happened to me earlier this summer. I could tell the battery was getting old, having trouble starting the car every now and then. I left my radio on while I was waxing my car one weekend and it just shut off after about 15 minutes. After that the battery wouldn't take a charge and I couldn't start the car with a jump. Swapped it out and everything was fine. The production date on the old one was back in 2006 lol.

 

The machine gun sound is caused by the contacts in stater solenoid closing and opening. The battery is too weak to hold the contacts in the closed position so they release as soon as they are closed, and it goes on & on, till the battery is totally dead.