Given the way this year has worked out, with the wife being away a lot and the weather either being boiling hot or pissing with rain, we haven’t really used our car a lot, or enough.
We were just chatting this morning before she headed off to NI again and off the cuff she suggested that it probably hadn’t moved since late June, probably wouldn’t start and maybe we should scrap it.
I’m at a loose end this afternoon so figured I’d take it for an aimless wander around the back streets here. So of course it won’t start. It goes whoozh, whoozh, clicka-clicka-clicka.
I know next to nothing about cars. It’s had a new battery recently. I would say “flat battery” but dash lights come on etc.
So
From my highly technical description - any ideas?
Are there people who will come and collect a dead car and never be seen again? I’d rather not pay to get it started just for it to be scrapped
I’m in two minds, but we do seem to spend a lot of money for it to be used about four times a year. Up until now the wife has been resistant to getting rid of it because it has been useful for her family, but this year, less so.
The battery is flat. If you don’t use them they discharge. You should be able to jump start it and take it for a spin to charge it up.
However, if you let them go flat often, it damages the battery, so lifetime will be significantly reduced or they will fail earlier.
P.S. The dash lights come on because it’s all low power stuff and there’s enough in the battery to power them, but the starter needs 100’s of amps, and the battery can’t supply that when significantly discharged.
If you have a friend with a car and jump leads, it’s highly likely, since it has a new battery, that the car will spring into life with a bit of assistance from the battery in your friend’s car.
If you don’t have access to a friend with a car and jump leads, you could try and enlist the help of a couple of passers-by to give you a push start. To get a push start, you depress the clutch, put the car into second gear and once those pushing have got the car moving you lift the clutch suddenly and hopefully the car will spring to life.
If you are thinking of replacing it a 60’s garage will severely limit your choice
I can just about get my car in my 60’s built garage, I just can’t open the doors
Sounds like the stereo is playing one of your albums.
But seriously, if you don’t move any replacement car either then the same thing is going to happen to the battery. Unless you get a milk float of course…
I got rid of my car within a year of moving to London - and that was over 30 years ago. It’s absolute madness owning a car there now.
At the time I just hired a car when I couldn’t blag one from work - got a great deal from a local Nissan dealer, and got a succession of brand new cars which they could then sell at a discount because they were no longer new.
No idea if such a thing is possible now, but I am quite sure there will be hundreds of rental and sharing business-models in existence to look after people like you who don’t really need a car.
Allegedly.