MadClikr

Car Troubles

Rate this Entry
2 Comments
by
MadClikr
, 05/06/2011 at 03:59 PM (184 Views)
I'm having an interesting day today. After getting dressed to run errands this morning, I found that my car wouldn't start (I bought it brand new about seven months ago). After troubleshooting for a little while, I think what happened is that I didn't turn the ignition switch all the way off last night, but left it in the accessories position, which means that while the car was off, the battery wasn't, and I think it was being slowly drained by the various systems.

Fortunately, I had a back up plan, my old car, which I haven't driven much since getting the new one. Unfortunately, since I hadn't been using the car, it's battery was also dead.

I learned an important lesson today while reading on-line. If you're going to leave a car without driving it for more than 30 days, you should disconnect the battery cables, to keep it from slowly draining itself. Oh... and also to make sure the car is off before going to bed.

Submit "Car Troubles" to del.icio.us Submit "Car Troubles" to Digg Submit "Car Troubles" to Facebook Submit "Car Troubles" to Feedmelinks Submit "Car Troubles" to Furl Submit "Car Troubles" to Gnolia Submit "Car Troubles" to Google Submit "Car Troubles" to MySpace Submit "Car Troubles" to My Yahoo! Submit "Car Troubles" to Netscape Submit "Car Troubles" to NewsVine Submit "Car Troubles" to Reddit Submit "Car Troubles" to Slashdot Submit "Car Troubles" to SphereIt Submit "Car Troubles" to StumbleUpon

Categories
Short Notes and Random Musings

Comments

  1. nedayja's Avatar
    Did you leave your keys in the ignition....in the accessories position? My car key will not come out unless it is in the off position. As far as your old car....if you had thought to start it up every week or so and let it run for a few minutes, the battery should have been ok. That is what I did several years ago, when my right foot was in a cast for 6 weeks and I couldn't drive.....found out later that it was the right thing to do....easier than disconnecting the battery cables....of course, that was back when gas wasn't so expensive.
  2. MadClikr's Avatar
    My new car has a "smart key," so I don't physically put it in the ignition switch and turn it, it's all done over wireless. It's nice to have, but the downside is that it's a lot easier to leave the car on if you don't have a physical key to remove.

    I had gotten out to start the old car (a 1997 Toyota) a couple of times, but most of the winter it was buried under or behind snow drifts. I probably should of dug it out to start it... but didn't, and I didn't know about disconnecting the battery cables at the time. At least we had family in the area to give both cars a jump start! We're thankful for that.