HELP car died!!!

[Guest]

88 reatta 196669kms

i was driving down the street then the display went dead! then it came back then died again. then after it doing this a few more times the whole car just gave up and died! it evan trapped me in the car when the door locks were energized in the lock position. i finaly forced the lock up and got out!! then i tryed to remove the key and it was stuck between the key removal position and the first click! couldn't move it in eather direction. (the car was in park) finaly it came out and i was able after fiddling with it, got the key to turn to the start position. the car klicked then nothing. not evan the display! tryed the batry terminals and after fiddling for a while i got the display to light up. Don't ask what i did but i got it to work. then i got the car to start. wohoo. i put it into drive and got it about 3 feet then it went dead again. got out played under the hood and got the display back and started the car!! i let it sit for about 5-10 min then moved it into a parking lot and let it run!! it was running really bad!! had to hold the gas to keep it running. let it sit running in the lot for about 15 min till the tow truck came!! i notice that the volts were reading 14.9 on the gages and the rpm's were close to 450. really low for my car. i wondering what could cause this. i really need and answer since this is my only car!! HELP

[padgett]

Sounds like multiple problems though 14.9v could be a bad ground at the battery particularly since you mention some restoration on wiggling the terminals.

Since a bad connection particularly the large cables to the battery can look fine from th outside (usually can identify because heat up quickly) I would suggect first removing and cleaning all of the battery connectors and checking the cable connections to the chassis and the engine block.

ps the battery plays a large part in voltage regulation, if the connections are bad I have seen 200+ volt spikes in an electrical system. With high voltage, anything could happen.