2010 dodge Journey battery dead if the morning

[Jeff Harmon]

I have a 2010 journey. The battery needs jumped in the morning for the last 4 days. Last night I went outside and started it at 9 pm then 1 am again at 530 am and tried at 715 am but it was dead. Why does this happen? It started all the other times. I know this sounds obvious that it’s a battery issue but t makes no sense. I will take the car today to test the battery but it runs fine at night and all day after I get a jump for it. 

[John/Horace]

Need to measure cranking amps capacity of battery.  When you start a car in cold weather it removes a lot of energy from the battery, in 5 mins running it may not replace what it took to start. So multiple starts don’t necessarily help.  Especially an older battery that doesn’t recharge as fast.
If you have a block heater, plug it in for a few hours, warm engines turn over way easier using less power (amps).

Need to leave battery on a charger for several hours sometimes to recover , especially if out in the cold.

 

Push button start also seem more fussy on amperage than old style key ignition. They would turn over car slowly if battery low,  more often starting with a low battery imo.

[Dodgems]

Just adding onto John. Sometimes their is enough juice to crank but not enough for the pcm to operate. Today's cars will throw all sorts of weird issues at you if one cell is bad. In our Neon when the battery was weak the gauge cluster would freak out and all kinds of warning lights would come and go. First time it happened was on the highway at 65mph. Should have had plenty of juice from the alternator. Even restarted a few more times so I knew it had to be something expensive. Nope just a battery wearing out.

 

 I worked at a gm dealership for a while and we never left the ignition on for more than a few minutes on late 90 to mid 00 vehicles. Even a good battery will drain enough in 20 minutes to not start. They will crank for a while but if the pcm is below 12 volts it will not fire the injectors.

 

You can remove the battery on my old Mustang II and it will keep on trucking as long as you don't stall it. Modern cars will not tolerate that.

[Jeff Harmon]

Thanks for the advice. I took it to have battery and alternator tested and both were excellent. The battery is an Interstate 7 months old. The car would run after a jump then after sitting all night it would try to start but wouldn’t. That’s why I kept trying every few hours to try it to make sure it charged up but I get what you’re saying…. Just confused as to why it’s happening at day break. Seems possessed lol. Nothing came back negative and they checked everything they said. I don’t know. Thsnks for the replies 

[5rebel9]

You should also check for a battery drain , such things like glove box light staying ON. Your year was known for this particular problem and there are many threads here about the switch being out of whack leaving the light on. IT WILL DRAIN THE BATTERY overnight.

[2late4u]

also anything left plugged in the back outlets also oee person said he found his drivers door handle sometimes was being activated and turning the inside lights on draining his battery.also try pulling your bluetooth fuse as some have said that was their problem,check all your battery grounds at the starter and frame as well that they are CLEAN and tight