Battery dead. What to do?
 

Hello forum. I was going to take my 2014 Camaro SS our today, as I unlocked it I noticed that the lights barely came on and the doors wouldn’t unlock.

I don’t drive it every day. But maybe 2 days out of the week. However the last time I drove it was a week ago. The battery is the original, never replaced it, but also never had problems with it either. Anyways I crawled through to get the trunk open, and I have it hooked up to the trickle charger. How long do you think it would take to have enough juice to power it on?

Also if it takes too long, I may just replace it on my own, I don’t want to pay to tow it to a service shop. Has anyone done it and is there anything special that I should know? I saw a YouTube video on it and it seems pretty straight forward. Also to ground the vehicle, is it safe to use the negative cable on my trickle charger to the block?

Trickle charging is just for maintaining the battery. Your battery is 4 years old and these cars rely on batteries much more than older cars due to the mass of electronics. Changing out the battery should not be a challenge if you are half way mechanically inclined. Be sure to clean the cables good and small amount of dielectric grease probably would not hurt. It will help keep the connections from corroding.

Basically the whole car is a ground. If you are charging the battery your charger should be hooked directly to the battery. If you are jump starting it there are jump start points under the hood, use those.

You may get enough juice to start the car after a day or so on the trickle charger, but as said, it's not meant to recharge a discharged battery. Once you get the trunk open, just buy and install a new battery. Be done with it, don't try to salvage the old one....