On Saturday, Dudette was going to go to work for a while and get some stuff done. When she went to leave, the car decided it wasn't going along. It wouldn't start. Battery dead.
So she took the truck and left me to ponder the car. As she pulled out, I was staring blankly under the hood, rubbing my chin thoughtfully, and doing my best mechanics "Hmmmmm..." She left feeling assured the car was in the hands of a qualified mechanic. (I'm really good at fooling people.)
My problem was that there were multiple possibilities for this dilemma.
First, she has been having problems with the electric door locks. They will hum and groan like they are wanting to do something but not sure how to get there. And it makes no difference if you hit the button to actuate them or not. Just open and close a door, any door, and they act like they are in need of an exorcism.
And the problem is sporadic. Never wants to do it while our mechanic is near the car. Figures, right? So maybe the locks have been draining the battery. Could be, don't you think.
Next, the battery is over 5 years old. And it is a 5 year battery. See a correlation? However, I've seen batteries outlive their owners. And, I've seen them commit suicide driving off the shops parking lot. So, who knows.
Last, I believe the alternator in the car is the original. Not bad for a 13 year old alternator.
Anyway, I put the battery on a charger and it would only come up to 11 volts. Not good.
With the car started, the meter jumped up to 13 volts. Kinda rules out the alternator. But not totally. It could still be having intermittent problems.
So we dropped the car off for our mechanic to do the diagnostic thing to it and tell us EXACTLY what was happening.
Alternator is fine. Battery is dead. And the damn door locks wouldn't act up. Again.
But while it was there, we figured we might as well get new tires for it as it needed them.
Got the tires, a battery, an alignment, some other stuff the car needed and didn't have to sell the house. Not bad.
We still don't know about the locks. But our mechanic looked at us, and with a straight face said, "You know? That's an XYZ. I've seen XYZ's have a lot of weird problems when the battery was going bad."
Do NOT play poker with our mechanic.
Cars happen.
Good mechanic. He is perfectly right about the door locks acting up when the battery is bad. (When I read that you were having door lock problems, I immediately jumped to "bad battery".)
Posted by: Cop Car | October 15, 2005 at 07:35 PM
See, you just need Cop Car as your mechanic!
Posted by: bogie | October 16, 2005 at 02:19 AM
Well, I did own that car for about 8 years, so I learned a bit about it.
Posted by: Cop Car | October 16, 2005 at 03:31 PM