Earlier this year, after a few months of lockdown, I discovered that even car batteries that were in reasonable condition can go completely flat without much warning if the vehicle is only being driven rarely over an extended period. I was aware of the possibility of the small power draw draining the battery over time, but hadn’t expected such a strong effect so soon given I was still driving the car a few miles a couple of times a week.
That was annoying enough, but then it turned out that the alarm system in my car has a backup battery to continue powering the siren in the event that the main battery is disconnected, presumably someone’s idea to stop a thief from silencing the alarm quickly. That backup battery can run the siren for several hours, obviously without reference to where the vehicle is or what time of day or night it is.
Moreover, if you’re unlucky, when you try to unlock the car the failing main battery can have just enough juice in it to trigger whatever condition makes the alarm system think the main battery is being disconnected but without actually disarming the alarm system, thus setting off the siren.
Which you can’t stop without power from the main battery.
Which has just run out.
You may have a bad alternator though, if it's not the battery. It really depends on the car configuration, but it is surprising that even that short trip doesn't recoup the cost of starting.
You can get alternators and batteries that are better at your use case too, work site utes and shuttles often get used like you describe.
With the wisdom of hindsight, I should probably have left a trickle charger on the old battery now and then while it wasn’t getting much long distance driving to keep it charged up. I was just a bit surprised that there was so little warning given the dire state it had apparently reached before the alarm incident.
But of course, the real problem here isn’t that a battery with unusually low usage drained faster than I incorrectly anticipated, it’s that my own car had an alarm going off that I had no reliable way to stop even standing next to it with the key in my hand. Clearly this should never be possible. In fact, I read that a lot of vehicle security systems do have some sort of emergency override for this sort of situation, but I found nothing relevant in the documentation that came with the car, and unfortunately the various suggestions I found online for similar models didn’t work on mine.
I have also had my car stolen. They had the alarm disabled in seconds, and then had all the time in the world to get it running. The only reason I still have that car is because they stalled it in the middle of the street, and the immobiliser kicked back on, so they fled.
That car is now mostly a track car, so it's actually got a pin-locked ECU that I pin in before driving it. No amount of hotwiring would get the ECU to work without that pin. Even still, it would just need to be dragged onto a trailer and I'd never see it again.
Anecdotally, once some modern car batteries die in this way, they fail to hold a charge at all, so classic jump-starting doesn't work. So I only replaced the battery when lockdown was over, to avoid the same problem happening to a new battery.
I have an old top-loader, it doesn't care at all (or know) whether the lid is closed.
I do wonder what it does if I pull the plug with the door locked though. I should try it.
My condo has two front-load washers, and I once saw someone start one up, the door lock, and the seal break - so it was spraying water everywhere. These don't have any way to interrupt them, so we got a maintenance guy to unplug it - but the door still didn't unlock, even after plugging it back in. The maintenance guy ended up jerking it open hard (might have broken the lock, don't remember), so the other resident could get their clothes.
I only ever use our top-load washers, which don't have any lock on them.
One of many stories: https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/asia/child-rescued-afte...
Possible... But... Seems to me it's more likely you just run them over.
Of course not all companies have these locks but some companies put them in as features for worried parents as piece of mind.
The grotesqueness aside, I do loath the pendulum swing we have toward safety these days. It's so bad now that it makes things worse in a lot of cases. I have to dick with my phone for navigation (which requires a lot more looking away and danger) because my car won't let press a couple of buttons while it is moving in the name of "safety."
It's actually quite astonishing how, despite the growing chemical and mechanical complexity of household items, most household things are actually quite safe to have around children. It would be quite easy for these things to be actively dangerous, but fortunately a combination of thoughtful design, fear of lawsuits and regulation works to make them safe.
(Also if we're talking in context of white goods, you can't ignore children in the design process, as a good chunk of the target market has them, and the play around where such appliances are deployed.)
Example of mindless nanny-statism: washing machines that you are simply not permitted to open at certain times, period -- not even in case of power outages, component failures, or plumbing emergencies.
I hope you can see the difference. Don't defend shitty engineering. It makes the whole world a worse place to live.
How do you know that by driving by a wreck?
Certainly it will be a far more useful way to guide policy than "You don't know for a fact that all those accidents weren't caused by external events outside the drivers control." however technically true.
There aren't evil driving-fairies nudging people's elbows, and we have manufacturing and inspection regulations to keep the percentage of mechanically unfit vehicles low. That just leaves the drivers themselves holding the primary responsibility in the majority of cases.
These are all things you already knew, which makes the question disingenuous and of questionable ultimate purpose.
How exactly is that my fault?
You make no men to on of environmental factors causing wrecks.
You also make no mention of multi-car wrecks.
Clearly you live in some part of the world with perfect weather?
The original commenter can be reasonably assumed to know which accidents they witnessed could have been influenced by things like weather, and thus are not part of his assertion.
Likewise all the follow-on vehicles in multi-vehicle events are irrelevant. No mention was made because they obviously have no bearing on the observation and point being asserted. Meaning, sure, in addition to a large number of a certain class of accidents he's talking about, there are also a other classes of accidents he's not talking about, so what?
Clearly you live in some part of the world with imperfect schools? Oh was that rude and childish?
I ended up having to wedge the door and open it from the inside with a coat hanger.
Apparently the only other way to open the car when the battery has completely failed (as opposed to having charge, but not enough to turn the starter) is to connect jumper cables to the positive lead on the starter motor and the chassis. Of course my jack was in the boot, which I couldn't open since the battery was dead!
I've now attached a wire to the bonnet latch, so if this happens again I can just pull the wire to open it.
The key will turn, but that's it.
Such a happy ending! I’m so glad I read to the end :)
There is probably a mechanical switch somewhere but it might not be documented.