# Battery Issues.



## Eddy Cruze (Jan 10, 2014)

This is a very common problem on the CRUZE and it is under special warranty coverage for 10 years-120,000 miles, possibly 150,000. Its the Negative Battery Cable!


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## Rivergoer (Mar 30, 2017)

xarumitzu said:


> Hello. I bought a '14 diesel about a year and a half ago. It's been an awesome car. I haven't had any issues with it until a couple weeks ago. One night after I got out of work, the car cranked pretty slow, but started just fine. It was around -7F at the time. Over the next week, the car started just fine, but seemed to crank a bit slower than normal. Finally one night as my girlfriend and I went to go see a movie, the battery was completely dead. The engine wouldn't crank, and I got service stabilitrak, service traction control, open and close driver window messages, as well as the wipers and hazard lights coming on un-commanded. We took her car up to an O'Reillys and I bought a new battery. Around five days later, during the coldest night of the polar vortex, the new battery failed to crank through two start attempts (-15F). I also got all the error messages, and wipers turning on again. After waiting for a bit, the car did finally start on the third try. I took the car up to a dealer to see if they could test the battery and the alternator, but they gave it back to me after 6 days saying that it started up four times for them just fine (the temp is around 50 degrees warmer now). My gut feeling is that I bought a bad battery as the O'Reillys cashier said that I bought the only 94R battery they had in stock. I also wonder if this might be negative battery cable related. My car hasn't really shown any of the other common negative battery cable symptoms, other than the mylink screen cutting out infrequently though. I was planning on buying a Northstar battery, and ordering a negative cable and changing it out myself. What do you all think? I appreciate any advice.


GM specifies AGM for the diesel...Make sure they sold you an AGM not a flooded-cell battery. 

And replacing the neg batt cable makes sense.  The symptoms described are common signs of either weak battery or bad neg batt cable.


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## xarumitzu (Jul 8, 2018)

Rivergoer said:


> GM specifies AGM for the diesel...Make sure they sold you an AGM not a flooded-cell battery.
> 
> And replacing the neg batt cable makes sense. The symptoms described are common signs of either weak battery or bad neg batt cable.


I did make sure it was an AGM battery. Thanks for the advice. I'll replace the negative cable as soon as I can. I'll make sure to put the Northstar battery in before it gets cold as well.


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## xarumitzu (Jul 8, 2018)

Well I replaced my wipers today, and while I was out there I decided to look at the negative battery cable. It appears to be the new style. I have read that some people have reported the new cables as being bad. Is it common for the new ones to fail? I’m still going to try and get a new battery though.


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## sailurman (Sep 29, 2016)

It's my understanding that the Cruze Diesel was not part of the Negative Cable TSB. My Sonic was, and it definitely failed. I had battery issues with my Diesel and it ended up just being the combination of a failing AGM battery and a corroded Negative terminal/connection.


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## boraz (Aug 29, 2013)

sailurman said:


> It's my understanding that the Cruze Diesel was not part of the Negative Cable TSB. My Sonic was, and it definitely failed. I had battery issues with my Diesel and it ended up just being the combination of a failing AGM battery and a corroded Negative terminal/connection.


it was included


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## KpaxFAQ (Sep 1, 2013)

I had my negative battery cable replaced proactively under warranty when I had a bad glow plug replaced under the bumper to bumper


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## xarumitzu (Jul 8, 2018)

UPDATE: I replaced the O’Reilly battery with a Northstar. The car cranks insanely fast now. I kept an eye on the voltage in the DIC on my way to and from work. It was a constant 14.7. On my way home it hit 15 then dropped back a couple of minutes after I parked at home. I did check the cable with a meter. I read 0 volts being dropped across the cable. I cleaned the terminals and the cable terminals really well before I installed everything too.

I won’t know for sure if the battery was the issue unless it gets crazy cold again, but I’m fairly certain this will be a good fix.


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## snowwy66 (Nov 5, 2017)

I don't think you'll see a measure of voltage drop on charge side. The test is usually cranking. Where more amperage is pulled. And you have to have the meter on tenths. 

In the old days anything above .5 on the positive and .3 on the negative was a bad cable. 

I think it's .3 on both sides these days.

Oreilley's and pepboys aren't the best places to buy parts.


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