Civic EG

if the terminals "polls" on my battery were slack would that cause my engine to idle rough??
cuz dis morning while i was on my way to work my car started idling very rough while i was in traffic, i have two water temp gauges the original one in the dash and an aftermarket one on the side, the aftermarket gauge was straight up to red, but the one on the dash was normal, so i pulled aside and switch off the engine check the water evry thing was fine, but when i tried to start the car again i had no power no lights no horn nothing, got a jump from a friend and it started like normal...
obviously it was the battery, but the part i can't understand was the weird idle and the gauge reading on the aftermarket gauge??
any1??

could have had a short... have you hooked the aftermarket gauge back up yet? if it happens again then you found your your problem

that sounds more like a short in ur wiring to ur aftermarket gauge.Is everything working fine since the gauge is not hooked up?

well i tightend up the battery polls and the car works fine now...
i guess the gauge was shorting , but could the lose battery polls cause the engine to idle rough?? cause when i swicthed off the car that morning when the problem occured the battery was dead...