My charging system may have packed it in, too. The battery seemed to not be
holding a charge for the last month. I was putting it on a 6 amp trickle
charger on the weekends until I could get out from under my next deadline
(last one of the year, hurray!). On this charger, as the batter charges,
the amp meter drops from 5 (for instance) to down around 1. Yesterday, even
with a 4 hour charge, the car would not start. I jumped it off my wife's
car and went for a drive (at night, of course. Can't be too smart about
this stuff). The lights dimmed a lot (much more than they used too) at
idle. Also, the rpms had to be much higher before the charging light would
go out. Upon returning, I disconnected the battery from the car and
connected it to the charger again. The amp meter started at around 2 and
then went UP! This morning it was at 5. I've never seen this before. Is all
of this just a dead battery? It's a 5-year battery on it's eleventh year...
Is there a website that goes into charging system diagnosis? The Haynes
manual just says to take the car to a specialist at a service center.
Thanks,
Jeff
Jeffrey H. Boatright, PhD
Editor-in-Chief, Molecular Vision
http://www.emory.edu/molvis
"Seeing the Future in a Very Tiny Way"
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