Fun with a Flat Battery
So thanks to a certain three year old leaving my car lights on without me realising it, I ended up with a flat battery a few days back!
A neighbour gave me a little knock and told me my lights were on, I was surprised as I had thought the lights turned off automatically when I locked the car... in fact I'm sure they do, so i mused have nudged the key accidentally and re-opened it.
Anyway, on trying to start it up it just sounded wheazy, gradually getting slower and more pathetic with the second, third, fourth attempts, and by the fifth it was clear it was never going to start!
Battery Charger to the rescue....
Thankfully I have a decent battery charger and so I simply connected it up, selected car mode and let it do its thing.
This wasn't quite as simple as I thought it would be - I had to Chat GPT which was the correct terminal, I guess the big plus sign on one of them should have been a giveaway, but there you go.
And then there was the not so good advice about connecting the negative lead to some other bit of metal rather than the negative battery terminal to avoid a spark risk, I ignored this, got a small spark, so what!
The starting voltage was 12.8 which is apparently on the low side when charging, so I let it have a good run....
I was a bit on edge about the prospect of rain - it held off, but given the set up above this wouldn't have been ideal...
A friendly guy on a moped
After a couple of hours charging or thereabouts a nice guy knocked on the door who had jump cables (connected via a box presumably offering some kind of protection to his own battery).
I'm fairly sure my charger was doing a stirling job anyways - the voltage was ticking up nicely, at 13.6 before this guy turned up - but I wasn't going to look this gift horse in the mouth either!
The car started straight away with the jump assistance, normally it churns a little, but this little test (which was really the guy's rational for me doing it) shows that churn really is the battery being old, it's 10 years old!
I let car idle a while, went for a drive for 30 mins and happy days, no problem since!
Lessons learned...
- Maybe get a new battery or
- Give this one the ocassional trickle charge...
- Check the lights once a toddler's been messing around in your car!
Gotta check everything when a toddler is around! They're faster than lightning when it comes to touching stuff, and they do it so casually and subconscious that neither they not anyone else notices.
Yes and with the auto radar set to find precisely what you don't want them ton find!
I have a dead battery in my car as well. Luckily I have a battery charger here and its a good thing to as its not likely I find someone to give me a boost. I didn't start the car for a month thus the reason for the battery losing its juice. I lean on the side of not purchasing a new one unless the charge doesn't hold to any reasonable degree. It was nice for the passerby to lend a hand and give you a boost.
I guess if you can charge it easily and it holds that's fair enough!
Well, you are far away, else I would have come to help, as I did to another Hiveian in here.
I know a man who would have a meltdown over the dirt in that engine bay; he's always cleaning under there and things are quite clean because of it. I don't see the point because the hood closes over it but he seems to think it's important.
Anyway, I'm not sure what to do about the battery, a new one I suppose, and as for that toddler, might as well teach the three year old to drive, could pick you up after a few drinks at the local.
Becca 🌷
Oh he is ferrying me about in my ageing years for sure!
It is in the back of my mind that i should clean the engine/ battery especially, at least the terminals, actually I MUST do that that!
I think that's a very good use of resources and he won't mind driving you around at all. Possibly.
Becca 🌷