(Update at end of post) I struggle to remember the last time one of my cars needed a tow. Yes, I had Stephanie pull the ’66 F-100 home with a tow rope hooked to the Forester when the fiber cam gear broke at the dump. And I needed a tow once on the ’77 Dodge Chinook before I was initiated into the cult of Mopar ballast resistors. But in terms of our front-line passenger cars, it would have to go back some twenty-two years, when the ’85 Cherokee’s transfer case stopped transferring.
And yet, here is our barely one-year old Acura TSX up in the air. And I have only myself to blame, in more ways than one.
The other morning I took Stephanie out to the airport. On the way back (thankfully), just as I reached this train crossing right before the intersection, I saw a train approach and the crossing came down. It was a container train, on UP’s main line. And it was doing about 30 mph or so; accelerating as it came out of Eugene.
It’s been a lifelong habit of mine to hate sitting with the engine idling, whether it’s at a road construction stop, a serious traffic tie-up, waiting for someone at the curb, or…a long freight train. I was listening to some nice jazz on Sirius, so I instinctively turned the key to kill the engine, and turned it to what I thought was “Accessory” to keep the music on.( I don’t drive the Acura often).
How long did it take for that freight to roll by? I’m guessing three to four minutes. When the signal arm went up, I turned the key to start the engine, and…it won’t start! All the dash lights flashed on and off in a strobe-like manner, but nothing more. It was so utterly unexpected; like getting hit by a lightning bolt. I simply couldn’t believe this was for real. The idea of the battery going dead in three or four minutes simply wasn’t conceivable, so I assumed it must have been some weird electronic screw-up, maybe from the sequence of my key actions, or?
I turned it totally off, got out and back in, to try to reset everything. Nothing doing. So I put it in Neutral and started pushing it to the side, as I was holding up traffic. Someone got out and helped me ease to the side.
I sat there trying to collect my thoughts. Is it a dead battery or an electronic glitch? It occurred to me that that my seat warmer was on Low, and that I remembered seeing the light for it on while the train went by. So maybe I had it in On; but still. A seat warmer can kill a battery in 3-4 minutes? On a fairly new car? Well, it is actually a 2013, which sat for about a year at the dealer, and they had to jump it to get it started there. So maybe the battery is a bit less than perfectly healthy. But still?
So I called my younger son, who is in current (temporary) possession of a rather ratty Mercedes E430 (W210). I told him to get my big jumper cables and come. When he arrived, I had him point his nose up to the Acura, and I opened the hood of the Mercedes. No battery anywhere to be seen!
Pulled out his owner’s manual, to find that’s it’s under the rear seat, presumably in order to fit that big V8 in there. Will the cables reach? Not initially; so we pushed the Mercedes right up to kiss the Acura. Then they did, they just barely reached. I go to start the Acura…nothing; just the same blinking lights. I wiggled all the connectors and tried again…nothing. OK, so much for that theory. It must be an electronic glitch; I was almost relieved to come to that conclusion.
So I called Acura Road Side Assistance, and they called up a tow truck. And I called the Acura dealer, and told them it was coming in. The Service Adviser suggested it was a dead battery, as “all those electronics” have a heavy drain, and one should never use Accessory to keep them on for any length of time. Three or four minutes? Come on.
“Anyway, I jumped it, and I’ve jumped hundreds of cars in my life.” Silence.
The tow truck dropped it off and I got a ride home from their shuttle. A couple hours later she called: “We did a complete electronic/electric check; everything is ok. The battery was low and needed charging. You can come get it now”.
So I did. No charge ($) for anything, and a car wash to boot. When I got home, I opened the hood again and took another look at that battery; damn, that thing is small. Tiny, even. Yea, I guess a bun warmer might take that down, especially if it wasn’t in the best of shape. Resistance heating is a major drain. But three or four minutes?
And why didn’t the jump work? I don’t know. I know the polarity was right, but for what it’s worth, with the kind of connectors on these modern batteries, it can be tough to get a good connection. If I hadn’t doubted that it was a dead battery, I would have spent more time fiddling with the cable connectors. But because I had serious doubts as to that being the cause, I didn’t.
Lesson learned. Keep the engine on, or if need be, make sure it’s really turned to Off, or at least confirm it’s truly in Accessory. Operator Error. And a waste of the better part of a day.
Update: I decided that original battery was undoubtedly weakened by having sat for most of a year. Rather than get in to it with Acura about a warranty replacement, I just went to Costco and got an Interstate (made by Johnson Controls) 42 month battery with 25% greater capacity for $69.99. If I lived in a really cold climate, I might have looked into a new battery pan to take a bigger battery, but I think this will do the job, hopefully for some time. And realistically, leaving the key in ON with the seat warmers on is not a great idea, even if a few minutes shouldn’t have killed the battery.
Paul, as an Acura salesperson I can tell you firsthand that as awesome as these cars are, their batteries are weak and horrible. We have issues with them sitting on the lot for only a few days. Even with them being started every other day they still go dead and have to be replaced very often. The blinking lights on the dashboard that you described are an indicator that the battery is low/nearly dead. I think you will have issues with your battery again, so you may want to see if your dealer will help you out by replacing your existing battery and/or prorating a new one. If not, maybe a good replacement from Sears or Autozone may be in order, especially if your car sat for a year on the dealer’s lot. We just sold the last 2014 TSX Sportwagon that we had on the lot and it needed a new battery from sitting so long too.
I hope you are enjoying your car. It truly is a great vehicle (except for the battery LOL!!)
Don’t know if they have outlets in the PNW but have tested Interstate Batteries produce from tractor batteries to rebuilding the 18Vbatteries in my rechargeable drills. They have a repeat customer in me.
Just bought a 42 month Interstate from Costco for $69.99!
We had a very similar problem with our 2009 Accord, but from a slightly different cause. We got food at Wendy’s, then drove down to the waterfront to sit and eat it. As we came down through the hollow toward the bay, it seemed a little dark and I turned the lights on. We found a good spot, ate, watched the boats and the birds, and when we were ready to go, no start. Called for a jump, the car started immediately, and off we went.
Since we had stayed in the car after we turned off the engine, the usual lights-on warning didn’t happen.
This was the summer before last, and we may well be on borrowed time with that battery – last time the car was at the dealer for servicing they said it was “marginal”, but we haven’t had a problem with it. We don’t tend to use the seat heaters much, but I often sit in the car and listen to the radio for 5 or 10 minutes with the engine off, an indication that the radio doesn’t draw much current.
I always carry a jump start pack with me, just in case. But in your case, jump starting didn’t work. I suspect the dead battery was sucking up all the power from the other one. I have had that happen. Removing the negative cable from the battery and connecting the jumper cables to the positive post on the battery, and the ground CABLE, not the battery, will take the battery out of the circuit. However, I mostly work on vintage cars without computers. you have to be very careful on computer cars not to fry something.
+1000 on avoiding an Acura dealer. I get most of my batteries from Autozone, and have had good luck with them. I would avoid those super expensive batteries like Optima. They don’t last any longer than regular batteries. The fleet department I used to work for used them for a few years, and finally realized that. They went back to regular batteries at about half the cost.
I’ve been in the habit of turning off my 2013 Nissan’s engine at long lights. Guess it’s time to stop doing that. Too bad because idling time can use up to 5% of a tank of fuel if you do a lot of city driving like I do. There’s this one mile long stretch on the way home that is downhill from one light to the next where I can get up to speed and then kill it and coast to the stop, having a stick means I can simply roll start with the clutch if it turns green.
Thanks for the recommendations on batteries. My car just turned 2, so I should be able to get one more year out of the battery, then have it tested in Fall 2016.
I do this kind of stuff with my Xbox all the time. The real problem is that I left the Acura in ON, which left on the seat warmers. In ACC, that wouldn’t have happened.
On downhills your fuel injection system will shut off the fuel. Turning off the engine while waiting for a long train is not a bad thing, because your engine should start just as well as it did before. Seat heaters do suck a lot of power, just like an electric oven warming up (I get charged for peak power demand in peak hours), or worse, an electric cloths dryer.
After running my SRX’s battery all the way down, it lasted about 5 more years and then showed signs of needing replacement, which I did. It was an expensive battery (from Interstate), something like $300 maybe.
The CTS is getting a new windshield today, and they are expensive.
Hey Paul, you might enjoy this 😉
“This Battery Has Lasted 175 Years and No One Knows How”
Cool. Although the title is a bit misleading (not surprisingly).
My ’13 Outback is actually a little slow starting here in our brutal Houston winter. I was hoping I’d get another year out of the battery, but 3 years is the max I’ve ever gotten out of one down here…
Seat heaters FTW. Better yet if the seats are cloth….I’m not a big leather fan.
It’s the summers and low water level that kills ours. I try to break into them so that I can add water but the past couple batteries I couldn’t.
Today I checked on a couple of things related to the seat warmers in my CTS
1. they do shut off and do not restart when the engine on/off button is pushed to stop the engine.
2. the rear seats (not middle) also have warmers that the rear passengers can turn on.