My wife's car died on campus (University of Alaska, Fairbanks). Because of where she was parked with cars on either side of her, nobody could pull in close to give her a jump start with cables. So, the campus police brought out a start kit -- basically a battery with cables. It also has a tester, and they said that the battery tested fine. After a couple of hours, everyone gave up and she got a ride home from a friend.

She picked me up from the airport that night, using my truck. Outdoor temperature: -22F.

Next morning, I went to see what I could do. The vehicle is a 2008 Toyota Camry XLE, V6. It has the pushbutton ignition switch thing, right? So, I pushed the button, no lights. I measured the battery and got 3.4 volts. Time for a new battery.

Napa sold me one and took the dead one as a core trade in, also saving me the hassle of dealing with it any longer.

This is the weird part: when I connected the terminals to the battery, all the dash lights came on, as though I was sitting in the drivers seat with the key fob and had pressed the start button. I got in and pressed the button, and there was no response. Lights all stayed on, no clicking, no nothing. I moved the ahifter in and out of park and neutral a bunch, but still no joy. So I disconnected the battery, not wanting to drain it.

Trying to deal with an electrical problem in the cold was looking pretty daunting, so I was thinking about having the thing towed when a friend showed up. He gave me courage to go on (also had a nice warm truck to thaw my fingers in). We pulled the battery, reached down to the starter and unplugged the small wire that actuated the starter solenoid. With the battery re-installed and all the lights on again, the plan was to run a jumper from the battery + to the solenoid connector and see if it cranked or better yet, started.

He was sitting in the car and watched while I did the jumper thing. The engine cranked over quite quickly but did not start. He put his finger on the button while I did my thing, and the same thing. We were about to try again, when he reported that all the lights went out. He pushed the button and they came back on, which is normal. I hit the jumper wire and bam, it started up.

Moral of the story: if the battery in a 2008 Camry is dead, really dead, you have to have patience after re-applying power and wait for it to "reboot".