96 jetta will not start all the time

I have a 1996 VW Jetta 2.0 automatic, when I first got the car
everything was working just fine then about 3 months latter I went out
to start it and the car was tottaly dead. I jump started it and it ran
just fine. About a month latter it did it to me again so I went and
bought a new battery thinking that was the problem. It was running
perfict for over a year and then it just started doing it again. I
could jump start it and it would run fine for a few weeks then I would
need to jump it again. Then it just got progresivly worse to the point
now I have to jump start it every time I get in it. I had the battery
checked and it is working just fine. Also it takes nothing to jump
start the Jetta as soon as i connect the cables it takes right off.
What is really getting under my skin is that the battery is not dead at
all I never lose memory on my clock or radio presets.

I was thinking it might be a short in the starter/silinoid or
something, am i going down the right path? I dont want to keep taking
off good parts to have them tested getting me no where.

If anyone could help I will be very greatful
That sure sounds like you have a bad connection at your battery wires somewhere along the line. or a bad ground on the negative wire thats grounded to the body follow the negative cable to the ground on the body take it off and clean up the end of the wire and the contact patch where it screws into the body. do the same on the positive cable clean up the terminals on both wires using a battery post cleaner and see if that makes a difference if not. since there inexpensive i would change them both. makeing sure you closely match your new wires with the same gauge thickness of your old ones. a lot of times they could be coroded on the inside where you cant see it and lot of guys will waiste a bunch of money on different parts all to find out in the end that they had bad battery cables.! thats where i would start


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johnin

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You could do a load test of the battery, Disconnect the the -ve cable
and put a digital ammeter that has a capacity of at least 10 amps in
series with the -ve battery cable. Of course this is with the engine
off and all accessories turned and no key in the ignition. When you
get this setup connected you should be drawing no more than 1 amp with
all the doors closed, accessories off etc. If its more than 1 amp you
have a drain on the battery. If this is the case then pull the fuses
one at a time until the meter reading drops below 1 amp. Then look up
what the fuse does and then you have the cause of your drain.