i was cleaning my car the other night and i guess i must have left the lights on inside because today i went inside the car and had zero power. will a batery recharger work or is the battery shot. i heard that once a battery completely drains its toast. is that true? what should i do?

 

Charge it and see if it will hold a charge...Best way to do that is charge it up fully and take it to autozone and they will test it for you, but make sure it's charged before you take up there or they will tell you you have a bad batt, when it's only not charged.

 

It might be ok. I have done it twice, and both times I jumped it off, and then let the alternator charge it.

DONT DO THIS LIKE ME AS A FOOL. Your alternator will hate you. I went through 2 of them before I finally realized. Let a charger charge it up as high as it can.

 

For real

 

Yeah...that's a real good way to fry an alternator. Break out the charger, and disconnect the battery before you charge it up. Set it to the lowest charge rate and let it go for a few hours. That'll give you the best chance of saving it.