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VIDEO · OCTOBER 29, 2026

Lights on, no start.
It was the battery.

My LX470 had power. The lights turned on and the AC turned on, but it wouldn't start. The starter had just been replaced, so before pulling fuses I wanted to know if it was just the battery.

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I picked up a TOPDON BT100 battery tester. You clip it on, pick the battery type and enter the battery's cold cranking amps (CCA) rating. My labels were covered, so I had to pull the hold-down bracket off to find it: 710 CCA.

The result: 12% health and 247 of 710 cold cranking amps. That's a bad battery.

The old battery was about two and a half years old and had some leaking around it. It's Texas. These go bad.

I jumped it with my AutoWit SuperCap 2. It has saved me a few times. It charges itself up when you connect it, even from a weak battery, and you can also charge it over USB or from the cigarette lighter. I connected the pack and waited for its ready signal before starting the car.

It started on the first try, so I let it run, took it for a drive and headed to AutoZone.

Their tester said the same thing: bad battery, cranking health fail, replace now. So a Duralast Gold went in right there in the parking lot, at night, and it started right up.

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