My wife owns a 1998 Geo Metro Lsi and she couldn't get the car to start. I jumped the car and it started, drove it around for about 10 minutes, stopped the car back home, then attempted to restart. It did not start. Is it safe to say that the alternator is shot? I'm not a mechanic.

 

Sounds more like the battery is shot (which can kill the alt in short order)

Jump it and it keeps running as long as the car is on, then won't restart becuase the battery isn't storing the charge and it's running off the alt. Autozone/kragen used to do free testing that would tell you which compnenet was bad, not sure if they still do.

 

sounds like battery to me too..

 

its most likely the batterey. the same thing happened this week on the sti. it got drained while i was in vegas and when i came back i charged it and then drove to sacramento from modesto. the next day i went out to start it and it was dead. I replaced the batterey yesterday and everything is fine now.
i believe autozone still does free batterey testing/charging.

 

The battery is fairly new. It's about 6 months old.

 

take it to autozone and get it tested.

 

it could only be two things: battery or alternator...you can get both checked for free

 

It seems that the positive cable is completely corroded throughout its entire length.

 

That's usually not a good sign.

 

That will definitely do it...

 

Metro's have battery cables? I thought you just wound up the giant thing on the back and it went

 

john has just raised his funny ratio from 0 to 1:8340

ytmnd