Inching Toward Duckon

[billroper]

As I slowly catch up on the various events of the weekend now that we've returned home:

When fleetfootmike and I arrived at the dealership to retrieve my I-Pass, it turned out that the car was fixed, because the problem was a battery that had died in a fashion that I'd never seen before. Apparently, it had died so suddenly and so catastrophically that it couldn't even be jumped to start the car. This seemed odd to me, but the car has run fine so far.

It seems that the flashing console lights are an indication of a bad battery. It would be ever so much better if this were documented somewhere that I could find in the owner's manual. I suspect that several other Ford products may have this entertaining failure mode, so any of my friends who see this should be advised.

After turning the rental car back in, we headed off to Fry's where much shopping was accomplished -- by Mike. I bought a $5 flash card reader in the hope that it might help me get the pictures off the Nikon. And then we finally proceeded off to Duckon.

Comments

[spiritdancer]

Now that you mention it, our van has had a similar dead battery problem. I was SURE there was something seriously wrong the second time it died, but the tow driver suggested we try jumping it (it didn't do anything when we tried to jump it before calling AAA). With the tow truck jump, it at least made some noise, so he left the cables set up with his truck running for about 10 minutes, after which I was able to get it started. Amusingly, when I went to to get a new battery, I was told the current battery was fine! (this was right after the second jump).

I still suspect we'll be getting a new battery soon.

[kizoku42.livejournal.com]

Also to the girls Saturn. The battery was physically swollen and couldn't be jumped. Not enough to notice casually, but you could feel it.

[starmalachite.livejournal.com]

Weird. Something of that nature happened to me the previous week. In my case, the battery failure was due to a highly intermittent electrical fault in my Mazda. "Highly intermittent" in the sense that it only acts up about every 18 months and is totally undetectable the rest of the time. (I've had 3 *good* garages try.) I love the car otherwise, so...