It will tell you the state of charge. Sure you can have all clean connections and excellent continuity in the battery circuit, but if your battery'* dead, its not going to help much.

Gee, lets all try to discount everything MACDRIVE says.

Mac...pout all you want, you are given credit and agreed with when your advice is sound

MAC, the best way to check the state of charge in a lead acid battery is to measure the specific gravity of the electrolyte. A fully charged, healthy battery will indicate approximately 1.285 to 1.290 at 80 degrees f IIRC. With these maintenance free batteries that is almost impossible to do. You have to go by the charge indicator eye with the green dot in center. On topic.......... tbharris, pull those cables off the battery posts and clean them up real good. Is this the oem battery?

Blau Blau Blau Blau Blau...

That should be 12.6 volts with the motor not running. Running, the voltage depends upon the charging being done.

A related test is measure the voltage while the starter is drawing current from the battery. IIRC that shold drop below 10 volts. Someone will correct me if that'* not it. This measures the capability of the batter to supply current as mentioned above.

ok let me say that this has turned into a battery discussion, when the Poster resolved the problem and said that he had Battery CABLE issues not the battery itself

Yes you can't measure the specific gravity of the electrolyte in a sealed battery, so what would be the frigging harm in hooking up a volt meter in parallel across the posts? It'* a place to start for criminy sakes is all I'm saying.

Sorry but a dead battery will often show the correct voltage. The voltmeter draws hardly any current.

Mark, yes this is the same battery that was in the car when I bought it in 2000. So you can say I have got my money'* work out of it. The green dot is still just as green as when it was new though I feel like the battery is at it'* end. My Bonneville only has 89000 so it getting to the end of alot of things for it'* life cycle. I have had to replace the manifold(which I felt like GM ought to have a recall on) other than this problem, it has been an excellant car but

MACDRIVE, please read what I just quoted. Also read what I posted earlier that you quoted. You are wrong. Voltage means NOTHING. It takes CURRENT flow to start a car and keep it running. A DEAD battery will read proper voltage in most cases.

What makes it worse is your attitude. Instead of you being open-minded to the proven experts and gearheads on this Forum, you cop an attitude. You are DONE in this topic.