[geeks] car question

Kurt Mosiejczuk kurt at csh.rit.edu
Mon Mar 11 14:50:48 CST 2002


On Mon, 11 Mar 2002, Amy wrote:

> hrm. i guess i'll need to buy a new battery to start the engine (the old
> one wouldnt hold enough stuff to turn over)

Very possible.  Draining a battery completely really hurts it.  And if the
battery was at all marginal before that, it would most probably kill it.

However... how long did you charge it?  You mentioned ten minutes, but
for a completely dead battery that is not that long.

> what if the jumper cables were wired wrong, in reverse? is that possible?

It's possible, but I doubt that...  if you cross wired the cables and left
it to charge for the ten minutes, something probably would have blown up.

> it never ran. it tried to turn over, but i guess it didnt have enough
> power. it wasnt dinging (door sounds when its opened), even.

If the battery couldn't power the door sounds, then the battery was way too
weak to think about starting the car.

--Kurt



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