Well, that sucked. I jumped into my car this morning, turned the key… and nothing happened. The battery was dead.
We got the NRMA dude out here, he measured the battery with his voltmeter, and the charge was going down even as we watched. We jump-started my car to get it going, then the guy got me to press and release the brake a few times. As it turns out, my brake light switch is faulty… apparently it keeps turning itself on, which is how the battery was draining. And come to think of it, which is probably why occasionally when I get out of the car, the brake lights are still on. I thought it was just a sticky brake pedal or something. Oh well, looks like I’ll need to book it into a mechanics soon.
Heh, and after we’d got the car going, the NRMA guy said to leave it going for about ten minutes, and that when I got to work, to disconnect the negative lead from the battery. Hopefully when I go home this afternoon my car will start… 😉
Oh, and I ought to be getting those New Jedi Order series books today. I /was/ going to go down to the Mall to get them myself after work, but I don’t think I’ll bother, with the battery as it is. My mum and dad are probably going down there today, so I’ll them to get the books. 🙂
I have a terrible car and some jumper leads if you do find yourself needing a jump start later today.
Unless you’re here late. Then I won’t be.
The end.
Aye, that’d be good, cheers. 🙂 I’m here until 5:30, so yeah…
My last car had a corroded voltage regulator that was stuck closed. It did its job, the trouble was its relay didn’t open when you turned off the key, so the accessories were still drawing maintenance power even with the car off. I did exactly what this guy told you to do for almost a year (till the car died for other reasons).
I don’t recommend doing it any longer than you have to. What didn’t help in my case (because the problem was on the internal engine circuits), but might in yours, was checking the fuse panel with a voltmeter to see which ones are passing current. That will not only tell you (hopefully) which circuit(s) the trouble is in, but you should be able to pull those fuses to break the circuit and save your battery without having to constantly hook it and unhook it. (Doing that can eventually kill your battery through the death of a thousand power transients, or at least it seemed to be gradually killing mine.)
Hmmm! Thanks for the advice, I’ll try that…
Hopefully I’ll be able to book it in to get fixed soon, though.